Indiana’s state motto is “The Crossroads of America,” and for years police have exploited one of the nation’s biggest shipping centers to profit from that status. Indianapolis is home to the second-largest FedEx Express hub, where 99,000 packages from all over the country can be processed in a single hour. There, law enforcement officials pluck packages from conveyor belts, run them past K-9s, and, if a dog alerts and the officers find cash, the county prosecutor’s office begins civil-forfeiture proceedings in Indiana state court to keep the money.
The prosecutor’s office does not tell the owners what crime was allegedly committed to justify forfeiture or what facts support its allegations that the cash is linked to a crime. To make matters worse, the parcels and their owners usually have no connection to Indiana other than the happenstance that FedEx routed the parcel through its Indianapolis hub.
Henry and Minh Cheng fell victim to this profiteering scheme in early 2024. The husband and wife own a small wholesale jewelry business in California. They’ve been running their business for three decades. They made a bulk sale of jewelry merchandise to one of their retail-jeweler customers, in Virginia, who eventually paid for the order by placing cash in a parcel and mailing it through FedEx to Henry and Minh in California.
The parcel was seized by an Indianapolis police officer at the FedEx hub, and the prosecutor in Indianapolis began forfeiture proceedings to keep the cash. But the prosecutor’s office has not identified (and cannot identify) an Indiana crime that serves as the basis for forfeiture.
Now, Henry and Minh are teaming up with the Institute for Justice to get their money back and to end Indiana’s profiteering. Americans should never have to prove their innocence to keep their property. Yet, civil forfeiture turns justice on its head, making cops into robbers rather than crime fighters.
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Indiana’s Profiteering Scheme
Some say Indiana’s motto is “The Crossroads of America” because Indianapolis is home to several major interstate highways that crisscross Indiana. But Indianapolis is a crossroad also thanks to its FedEx Express hub. Located near the Indianapolis airport, this mega processing center opened in 1988, is now the nation’s second-largest hub, and is set to continue expanding in the coming years. Packages from all over the country pass along 20 miles of conveyor belts on their way to planes and trucks bound for the parcels’ destinations. The facility—powered by approximately 4,000 people—can sort 99,000 packages per hour. [1]
For years, Indiana has profited from this fact. At the FedEx facility, law enforcement officers scan packages for parcels they deem “suspicious.” Officers claim suspicion based on innocuous features and conflicting reasoning. For example, packages can be deemed suspicious because they are a newly purchased box with tape on the seams (never mind that FedEx advises customers to tape all the seams securely[2]), they are sent to a “source state” like California, they were shipped priority overnight, the shipping was paid by unknown means or by cash or by credit card, they were sent from a residence to a residence or from a residence to a business or from a shipping center to a shipping center or from a residence to a shipping center, or the shipping label does not include the full name of the sender or recipient.
Officers set aside suspicious packages and have dogs sniff them. (As a general matter, these sorts of alerts are often suspect because, according to at least one study, 90% of U.S. bills have traces of cocaine.[3] Compounding the problem, Indianapolis’s K-9s are trained to alert to marijuana—illegal in Indiana but decriminalized or even lawful in the originating states for many parcels.) After a dog alerts to a package, an officer obtains a search warrant and opens the parcel. If cash is found, the prosecutor in Indianapolis often begins civil-forfeiture proceedings to keep it.
For the owners—often located hundreds or thousands of miles away—lawyering up and defending themselves in Indiana state court is often a prohibitively challenging proposition. Making matters worse, the prosecutor’s office does not notify the owners of what alleged crime supposedly justifies the forfeiture. Rather, the prosecutor’s office alleges that the cash was proceeds of “a violation of a criminal statute,” without bothering to mention which one. Forfeiture defendants are left to guess how their property is allegedly linked to an undisclosed crime.
There’s another problem with forfeiture of property seized in-transit from one non-Indiana state to another: the property has no connection to Indiana—much less to an Indiana crime—apart from the fact that it stops over at the FedEx hub en route to its destination. Indiana forfeiture laws do not allow forfeiture of property unless it is linked to an Indiana crime. And forfeiting property based on out-of-state crimes stretches Indiana’s jurisdiction beyond its limit.
None of this has stopped police and prosecutors in Indianapolis. For them, the FedEx hub is a cash cow. Since 2022 alone, more than 130 people’s cash has been seized for forfeiture from the hub when the cash originated outside Indiana and was bound for a non-Indiana destination. Indiana began forfeiture proceedings to keep more than $2.5 million from those parcels. And so far, the state has already raked approximately $1 million dollars in forfeitures from those parcels (many proceedings remain pending). The practice of providing inadequate notice reaches even more broadly, to the many forfeiture defendants each year whose cash is sought for forfeiture by the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.
Henry and Minh Get Caught Up in Indiana’s Money Grab
Henry and Minh Cheng began their small wholesale jewelry business almost 30 years ago. (They immigrated to the United States decades ago, and both of their families have long been in the jewelry business.) The couple specialize in Italian gold and diamond jewelry, and they service many jewelry retailers around the country.
In April 2024, one retail jeweler located in Virginia sent them a cash payment (totaling $42,825) for a bulk order of gold jewelry. The retailer mailed the cash through FedEx to Henry and Minh in California. But the parcel was seized by an Indianapolis police officer at the FedEx hub. The initial seizure was based in large part on a slate of factual inaccuracies. For example, the officer recounted that “[t]here is no signature required to receive the parcel”—when in truth, a “DSR” designation prominently displayed on the label signified “Direct Signature Required.” The officer recounted that “[t]he Priority overnight shipment was paid by unknown means at a ship center.” In fact, however, the label was not paid for at a FedEx ship center. Nor do FedEx labels ever display the “means” by which a parcel’s shipment is paid for. And the officer described as suspicious the fact that “all seams [were] secured with tape.” Even though FedEx advises its customers to “[t]ape all the package seams securely.” The parcel seized, the officer’s dog (according to the officer) alerted to it. The officer secured a warrant. And opened the parcel. And found, not contraband, but Henry and Minh’s cash payment. The county prosecutor wasted little time bringing a civil-forfeiture case in state court to keep the cash.
Following the prosecutor’s policy of using boilerplate allegations, the forfeiture complaint simply alleged that the cash was proceeds of “a violation of a criminal statute.” Which criminal statute? As usual, Indiana’s complaint doesn’t say. And of course, the cash is not connected to any crime at all. Nor, for that matter, does it have any connection to Indiana other than the happenstance fact that FedEx chose to route the parcel through the Indianapolis hub on its way from Virginia to California.
Henry and Minh have teamed up with the Institute for Justice to challenge the unlawful forfeiture policies they’ve fallen victim to. It is unconstitutional for Indiana to keep money it seizes without any connection to an Indiana crime and without adequately notifying the money’s owner about how the money is allegedly linked to an Indiana crime.
The Legal Claims
This lawsuit asserts two categories of claims that challenge Indiana’s forfeiture machine:
First, as a matter of state and federal due process, when Indiana brings a civil-forfeiture action in court to forfeit currency, it must identify the factual and legal basis for the forfeiture. That means identifying the specific crime that was allegedly violated and the facts that allegedly tie the property to that crime. Otherwise, the forfeiture complaint is deficient under Indiana’s forfeiture statute, the due-course-of-law provision of Indiana’s Constitution, and the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [4]
Second, Indiana may not forfeit property unless it is sufficiently linked to an Indiana crime. It’s not enough for cash to simply pass through the Indianapolis FedEx hub. Forfeiting property that is not tied to an Indiana crime offends Indiana’s own forfeiture laws, the due-course-of-law provision of Indiana’s Constitution, the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and more general principles of federalism.[5] Best-case scenario, Indiana is profiteering off of crimes in other states. Worst-case scenario (as in Henry and Minh’s case) Indiana is haphazardly suing to forfeit money that isn’t connected to any crime anywhere at all.
The case also asserts claims on behalf of two classes of people: (1) those who are subject to the county’s policy of providing inadequate notice to defendants in civil-forfeiture cases seeking to forfeit seized currency; and (2) those whose money was sent through FedEx from one non-Indiana state to another and is subjected to a forfeiture action by the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office in Indiana.
The Litigation Team
Institute for Justice Attorney Marie Miller and Senior Attorney Sam Gedge represent Henry and Minh’s company and the classes they seek to represent. They are assisted by Stephen Peters and Aaron Williamson of Kroger, Gardis & Regas, LLP.
About the Institute for Justice
The Institute for Justice is the nation’s leading advocate for private property rights and the abolition of civil forfeiture. IJ has litigated multiple class actions challenging civil-forfeiture practices of various government agencies. These include a nationwide class action against the TSA and DEA on behalf of travelers who have been unlawfully detained and had their cash seized without probable cause at airports across the country; a nationwide class action against the United States and FBI on behalf of hundreds of people whose property was illegally seized from privately owned safety deposit boxes; a federal class action challenging the forfeiture practices of Wayne County, Michigan; a class action against Harris County, Texas (Houston) challenging its civil-forfeiture practices; and a federal class action challenging Indiana’s practice of using for-profit private attorneys as prosecutors in civil-forfeiture actions.
IJ is also a leader in civil-forfeiture research, producing reports—such as the latest edition of Policing for Profit—that outline the many abuses of civil forfeiture nationwide
[1] Tim Miller, Second-Largest FedEx Express Hub Turns 30, FedEx (Sept. 18, 2018), https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/policy/aviation/fedex-express-indianapolis-hub.html.
[2] FedEx, Fast and easy package drop off, https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/drop-off-package.html.
[3] Christine Dell’Amore, Cocaine on Money: Drug Found on 90% of U.S. Bills, Nat’l Geo. (Aug. 16, 2009), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/cocaine-on-money-drug-found-on-90-of-us-bills.
[4] Ind. Code § 34-24-1-3(a); Ind. Const. art. 1, § 12; U.S. Const. amend. XIV.
[5] Ind. Code § 34-24-1-1; Ind. Const. art. 1, § 12; U.S. Const. amends. X, XIV.
