INDIANAPOLIS—Last year, Henry and Minh Cheng sued the Marion County Prosecutor over that office’s practice of forfeiting cash routed through the busy FedEx processing center at the Indianapolis airport. Prosecutors tried to forfeit the $42,000 inside the Chengs’ package, and did so without alleging any specific crime. While the Chengs’ money was returned, their lawsuit seeks a permanent end to the prosecutors’ unconstitutional forfeiture practices. Yesterday, the Marion County Superior Court certified a class of all people who are facing or will face similar forfeiture actions.
“No one should have their money handed over to the government when the government cannot say what they did wrong, but this was happening routinely for years in Indianapolis,” said Marie Miller, an attorney with the Institute for Justice. “With the court approving the Chengs’ suit as a class action, we get to seek justice for many people who find themselves fighting to get their money back simply because it happened to be mailed through Indianapolis.”
“This case is about more than just me or my company. The government violated my rights by seizing my money without any reason to believe that it was connected to a crime in Indiana and without notifying me of what crime it was supposedly connected to. Others should not be subject to the same kind of injustices.”
For years, police have seized cash at the busy FedEx processing center, and the Marion County Prosecutor has filed civil forfeiture actions on behalf of the state of Indiana to keep the seized money. This places people like the Chengs in the position of having to prove their innocence in a court hundreds or thousands of miles from their home, which for the Chengs is in California.
It’s a profitable practice. Since 2022 alone, Indiana has sued to forfeit more than $2.5 million from in-transit FedEx parcels, and the state has already raked in approximately $1 million from those parcels. To get their money back and to end these predatory practices, Henry and Minh teamed up with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm that defends people from abusive civil forfeiture practices nationwide.
Henry and Minh’s experience is typical of many people who find themselves caught up in Indianapolis’ FedEx forfeiture regime. The couple started their wholesale jewelry business about 30 years ago. They travel across the country serving retail shops. And last year, they made a bulk sale to a retailer in Virginia, who was slow to submit payment. A few months after the sale, in April, the retailer informed the couple that she could pay promptly with cash. Henry and Minh agreed to accept that form of payment.
The retailer shipped the money using FedEx, and the parcel was routed through the Indianapolis FedEx hub, the second largest FedEx hub in the U.S. There, a police officer seized the package and presented it to a K-9. The dog alerted, allowing the police to get a warrant to open the parcel. After an officer found the cash in the parcel (and no contraband), the Marion County Prosecutor filed a civil-forfeiture action to keep the money. As with other civil-forfeiture cases to keep money seized from parcels at the FedEx facility, the prosecutor alleged simply that the cash was proceeds of “a violation of a criminal statute.” What criminal statute? The prosecutor never says.
The Institute for Justice is the nation’s leading law firm fighting for the elimination of civil forfeiture. IJ is currently bringing class action lawsuits against the DEA and TSA for their practices of seizing money at airports. Following IJ’s release of video of a passenger bullied into permitting his bag to be searched, the Department of Justice suspended all DEA airport interdictions. IJ is also suing Indiana over forfeiture practices that let private prosecutors bring cases and keep proceeds for themselves. IJ is also a leader in civil-forfeiture research, producing reports—such as Policing for Profit—that outline the many abuses of civil forfeiture nationwide.