INDIANAPOLIS—Henry and Minh Cheng have crisscrossed the country selling jewelry to small businesses for three decades. They have never done business in Indiana. Yet today they are fighting in Indiana state court to get back more than $42,000 seized from their company’s parcel that was routed through the FedEx shipping hub in Indianapolis.
For years, police have seized cash at the busy 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 Henry and Minh in the position of having to prove their innocence in a court hundreds or thousands of miles from home. It’s a profitable practice. Since 2022 alone, Indiana has begun proceedings to forfeit more than $2.5 million from in-transit 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, the couple have teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit law firm that defends people from abusive civil forfeiture nationwide.
“The Indiana government cannot take money from people just because a shipping company routes it through Indiana,” said IJ Attorney Marie Miller. “Henry and Minh have never been to Indiana or done business in Indiana, but now they have to defend against a forfeiture action in Indiana, without the state bothering to identify an Indiana crime that it can allege the money is linked to.”
Henry and Minh started their wholesale jewelry business about 30 years ago. Based in California, they travel across the country serving retail shops. Early this 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 payment for the merchandise in cash.
The retailer shipped the cash payment through 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. A dog alerted to it, allowing the police to get a warrant to open the parcel. After an officer found the cash in the parcel (and without finding any contraband), the Marion County Prosecutor filed a civil-forfeiture action to keep all the money. As with other civil-forfeiture cases originating from the FedEx facility, the prosecutors alleged simply that the cash was proceeds of “a violation of a criminal statute.”
“The government can’t even identify a crime that would allow them to keep the money that we need to run our business,” said Henry. “We were shocked when we found out what was going on in Indianapolis and we want to put a stop to it.”
On August 6, the Institute for Justice filed a response to the forfeiture complaint on behalf of Henry and Minh’s company along with counterclaims alleging that Indiana’s scheme violates the company’s rights and those of classes of people in similar situations.
“This scheme is one of the most predatory we have seen, and it’s past time to put a stop to it,” said IJ Senior Attorney Sam Gedge. “It’s illegal and unconstitutional for Indiana to forfeit in-transit money whose only connection to Indiana is the happenstance of FedEx’s shipping practices.
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, against the FBI for its use of deficient forfeiture notices that do not say what crimes property owners are alleged to have committed, and against Indiana for 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.
