It sounds like a scene out of a political potboiler: Mysterious duffel bags of cash, often full of hundred-dollar bills, being brought in to bail out protesters. Sometimes, the amount of cash can exceed $50,000. And the locked-up protesters don’t need to call a single person.

It’s not a work of fiction, though. This is what’s happening in Minnesota, where the reports say huge sums of hard money are being used to get environmentalist protesters who object to the construction of the Line 3 pipeline replacement out of jail.

According to Alpha News, a conservative online news outlet based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested across the state after various acts of vandalism and trespassing, including several protesters from outside Minnesota.

Line 3 is the newest cause célèbre among the environmentalist left now that Keystone XL is, for all intents and purposes, dead and buried.

As noted by the Minnesota Post, an online news outlet considered to have a more liberal bent, this is somewhat different — with the Line 3 replacement being “intended to replace a smaller existing pipeline that first began operating in the 1960s that is aging, corroding and considered a dangerous spill risk.”