The article clearly states the below along with numerous other issues.

"That [airline] employee was being paid by the DEA a percentage of the cash seized, the IG found, and had received tens of thousands of dollars over several years. That arrangement is problematic, investigators concluded."

Holy cow, "problematic" is an understatement. So the airline employee gives a list of people who don't have enough time to assert their rights, the DEA confiscated any cash they found, and then gave what sounds like a kickback.

1. The data breach of personal information from the airline to the DEA.

2. The DEA performing any search at all. I can't imagine a world in which "Booked a flight on short notice" should be considered probable cause.

3. The DEA confiscating money. The unconstitutionality of civil forfeiture has been well discussed.

4. The DEA paying for the ongoing data breach. With payments "over several years", that isn't just a finder's fee, that's an ongoing business relationship.

Egads.

This is the "proximate cause" but anyone who "knows the world" knows that arbitrary power leads to corrupt abuse of this sort quite directly. IE, sure they stopped cause they "found problems" but one would expect such problems existed from the start and are inherent to a system of seizing cash on suspicion of ... something.

Which is to say it's not that no one read these explanations but that such explanations aren't meaningful and the real answer is politics as many have mentioned in other comments. That is to say, the mystery is what exact politics lead to this pull back now.

Screw off with the implication that I didn't read it. The stated reason is likely BS. Various parties have been getting kickbacks of various types for decades but now it's a problem? I'll restate my question, why now?