Delivering Justice: IJ Tackles Forfeiture Cash Grab At Shipping Hub

For longtime Liberty & Law readers, “Indiana” and “civil forfeiture” go together like peanut butter and jelly. Who can forget Tyson Timbs’ string of victories in the long-running fight to recover his Land Rover? And now there’s a new case on the Indiana roster, this time involving a small jewelry wholesaler based in … California. 

How does a California company end up mired in a civil forfeiture case in Indiana? Only because Indiana law enforcement ruthlessly exploits their privileged position at the Crossroads of America.

For years, the Indianapolis airport has been home to the second largest FedEx hub in the nation. At least 99,000 parcels pass through the hub each hour, en route from one side of the country to the other. Which, it turns out, is a cash cow for state and local law enforcement. Routinely, police pluck packages from conveyor belts and run them past K-9s. If a dog alerts and the officers find cash, prosecutors in Indianapolis file a civil forfeiture suit in Indiana state court to keep the money.

In their complaints, Indiana prosecutors don’t tell the owners what Indiana crime allegedly supports the forfeiture. For that matter, no Indiana crime can support these forfeitures: The parcels and their owners usually have no connection to Indiana other than the happenstance of FedEx’s shipping routes. 

Enter Henry and Minh Cheng. For the past 30 years, Henry and Minh have run a small jewelry-wholesale business in California. 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, one of their customers 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. Receiving cash by mail isn’t the couple’s usual practice, but this particular payment had been delayed, and they needed the money.

But it never arrived. Passing through Indianapolis’ FedEx hub, the parcel caught the eye of a police officer, who pulled it aside, subjected it to a drug-dog sniff, got a warrant, and opened it. Drugs? No. $42,825? Yes. And within days, Henry and Minh’s company was ensnared in a civil forfeiture lawsuit in a state courthouse over 2,000 miles away. The alleged crime supporting forfeiture? According to the complaint: “a violation of a criminal statute.” In other words, Indiana prosecutors have no idea what Henry and Minh could have done wrong—they just want the couple’s cash.

This state of affairs is unjust and unconstitutional. Critics often call civil forfeiture “policing for profit.” (In fact, that’s the title of IJ’s leading publication on the subject.) But Indianapolis’ FedEx forfeiture scheme is, if anything, worse: It’s no policing, all profit for law enforcement.

Since 2022 alone, more than 130 of these forfeiture actions have been filed, seeking to confiscate more than $2.5 million in total.

That’s why Henry and Minh have teamed up with IJ to spearhead a class action lawsuit to put an end to Indy’s money grab once and for all.

Sam Gedge is an IJ senior attorney and Marie Miller is an IJ attorney.