Is stolen property being seen on my property grounds for a search warrant? So this happened a few years ago in a college town in California. A police officer came to the door of the house I was living in, and told us that someone had stolen a large theta from the front of a frat house, and that someone walking down our street at around 6:00am had seen the letter on the lawn in our front yard. Given that it was stolen property the police officer told us that he could get a search warrant for our house, and if we didn't let him in he would block our cars in with his car and wait for the search warrant. We had nothing to do with the stealing of the letter and woke up long after it was gone. We assumed someone had drunkenly stolen it and dropped it on our front lawn. One of my roommates ended up getting scared and letting the officer in so the point was moot, but I did not think the officer was being truthful in saying he could obtain a search warrant. The stolen property had been seen on our lawn, but there was no way anyone could prove (because it was false) that we had anything to do with stealing the letter, or that the letter was even still around.
Keep in mind that a warrant doesn't require proof that you stole the property or have the property. Instead, the warrant is just authorization to look for that proof. The standard for securing a warrant is probable cause, which is a much lower bar to clear than people seem to think. It just requires that given everything the officer knows, there's a "substantial probability" that a piece of evidence will be in a given place at a given time. If the officer swore to a judge that a reliable source had told him that the letter was stolen, then seen in your front yard, and not seen since, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the judge gave him a search warrant.
You may contact a towing company; they will ask who you are, and will politely inform you that since you aren't the property owner, they aren't authorized to take someone else's car that is trespassing on the property. [Addendum] The first step in unraveling the legalities of the situation is seeing that only the property owner can give permission to enter (park) on the property. That permission can be rescinded, but only by the owner. The owner seems to have given permission and has stated in advance some conditions under which permission might be rescinded. The towing company could be called (by the owner) to act as the agent for the owner and remove the offending vehicle; but the towing company cannot just up an do this on their own. If they were to spontaneously tow a vehicle without officially acting on behalf of the owner, they would be liable for damages, owing to their having torted some guy's chattels. So the company will want to know that they are protected, in acting as the agent of the property owner. One way to do that is to verify that the person calling the towing company is the owner. Another would be to get the caller to swear that they are the owner and indemnify them against damages, in case they get sued. That pound of cure is more costly and annoying than the ounce of prevention of making sure that you're towing a car with proper authorization, so it's unlikely that they would just tow the car on your say-so. You might try suing the complex owner for some kind of breach of contract, if you think you have a contractual right to a parking space and they are negligent in doing what's necessary to meet your contractual right. The lease says "we may...", not "we will", so they haven't promised to absolutely enforce this rule. Or, of course, you could call the manager and mention that there's still a problem.
I think the officer is probably lying, not just mistaken, but they are not required to always be truthful. In addition to the law against possessing ID with intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any crime, it is also against the law to be knowingly in possession of a stolen credit card, or any other property. An example of a strict-liability possession crime, which the officer knows of, is that it is a crime to possess heroin, period. I am skeptical that the officer actually believes that there is a law making it a crime to be in possession of a credit card with permission, and suspect that he thinks it is stolen.
From a comment on the question: They did damage the trailer door and headlight is smashed This seems like the best thing to focus on, especially if you can show that it was not damaged before they towed it. The unusual method of towing (with video evidence) may be a factor in whether they are considered negligent. If the damage to the door looks like they caused it directly by breaking in, that would also help your case. You also asked in your comment if you should go to the police or to a lawyer first. Might as well go to the lawyer and see what they tell you to do. I'm not sure what the police would do if there is no clear crime that has been committed. (The lawyer should have better advice about whether/why to go to the police.)
I don't know of any law requiring schools to proactively disclose the results of these sweeps, but if you asked for them, the Michigan Freedom of Information Act would likely require both the police and the school to release records that would give you an accurate picture of what happened. At the very least, I would expect the police department to write up the results of its sweeps in a report to send up the chain of command. I would also expect that those results would be communicated in writing to the school district. The police should also maintain a log of all property they have seized; if they seized anything from the school, it should show up there, as well.
For the offense of receiving stolen goods, "tracing" does not usually apply. It must be the actual good stolen and not proceeds of illegal activity. Tracing could come up in an effort to impose a "constructive trust" (usually by a private party) or "civil forfeiture" (usually by law enforcement) on the proceeds of embezzlement or fraud, for example. Tracing in this circumstance is governed by broad considerations of equity law and are highly fact specific. The methods are fairly ad hoc and mostly come down to rules of reason. For example, a court might find that anything clearly purchased with clean assets that were not comingled with dirty assets are not subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust, but that the entire amount of comingled assets might be subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust up to the total amount less the amount of clean assets which were comingled. This issue came up in the U.S. Supreme Court of Luis v. United States in 2014 over whether clean funds of someone subject to fraud liability could be frozen to protect the solvency of someone who may have already squandered the dirty funds when the defendant wants to use the clean funds for an expensive legal defense of the case (SCOTUS said that assets purely traceable to clean sources can't be tied up so as to prevent them from being used in a legal defense of the case.) Tracing generally does not extend to a bona fide purchaser for value (i.e. someone with no knowledge of wrongdoing is paid fair market value for something or pays fair market value for an asset) of something from the person engaged in misconduct because there was no economic benefit from the transaction to either party's net worth. What if Bob offers a smaller sum of money to many people, small enough that Bob could easily afford to give such a gift to one person, but the combined cost of so many small gifts adds up to an amount bob couldn't/wouldn't have been able to afford without his supplementary income? Could someone argue that the gift they received from Bob came from his legal income, but the other gifts Bob made to others was due to Bob's illegal activities, by claiming Bob was likely to give a gift to them without the extra illegal income but not to the others etc? In this situation, the gifts would be a "fraudulent transfer" because absent his illegal assets, Bob would probably be insolvent (i.e. have debts in excess of his assets), and transfers made without receiving substantially equivalent value in exchange can be unwound by his creditors if he is insolvent himself within a certain number of years. His solvency at the time of the gift rather than tracing from legal or illegal income respectively, would be the relevant legal issue. Of course, if the amounts of the gifts were small, it might not be economic to sue for their return.
My recollection is there's a big difference between money and property. I found a 1929 law journal article that supports my recollection. The owner of stolen property is entitled to have it returned. If the person who obtained it from the thief didn't know it was stolen, the person didn't commit a crime, but must give up the property and is not entitled to any compensation (unless the person can get compensation from the thief). A person who innocently receives money is the holder in due course, and gets to keep it. The victim's only recourse is to get compensation from the thief.
Let's say you leave fake drugs in someone's yard. Eg, you expect the police to be dumb enough to believe it and arrest the other person Obstructing a public officer, specifically "deliberately hindering a public officer from carrying out official duties". Trespassing.