After law enforcement confiscated their property, a California couple was embroiled in legal proceedings with Indiana even though they had never been there.
Henry and Minh Cheng have been wholesale jewelers for more than 30 years. They are now fighting to recover their property in Indiana. According to a release by the Institute for Justice, their ordeal started in early 2024 after they made a large sale to a Virginia retailer.
The Chengs received the merchandise after the customer paid in cash. FedEx delivered it to them. The cash was seized by a police officer after it had been intercepted in the Indianapolis FedEx hub. This led to the civil forfeiture case brought by the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. According to a press release, the prosecutor’s offices claimed that the cash had been linked to criminal activity without specifying any specific crime.
The Institute for Justice claims that the Chengs’ situation is part and parcel of a larger trend at the FedEx hub in Indianapolis. The Institute for Justice claims that law enforcement officers regularly take parcels off conveyor belts and run them by K-9 units. If the dog alerts then they seize any cash.
According to the Institute for Justice, Indiana has confiscated over $2.5 Million from parcels in transit since 2022. Marie Miller, a lawyer with the group, said that Indiana cannot seize money just because it is routed through Indiana by a shipping company. “Henry & Minh never visited Indiana nor did they do business there, yet now they are facing a forfeiture in Indiana without the state bothering to identify an Indiana crime to which it can link the money.
BREAKING NEWS 🚨 @IJ is taking on one of the most predatory civil forfeiture schemes we have ever seen. Indiana is intercepting packages at a FedEx shipping hub, running K-9s over them, and forfeiting any cash found w/o saying a specific crime that was violated. pic.twitter.com/qjHJlmR3fb
— Andrew Wimer (@andrewwimer) August 12, 2024
In this case, the Chengs have been fighting to recover more than $42,000 from law enforcement that has been taken from their business. Henry Cheng said that the government couldn’t identify a crime that would have allowed them to keep our money to run our business. “We were shocked to learn what was happening in Indianapolis and we want it to stop.”
The state claims in the legal complaint that the money taken from the Chengs was “provided or intended to be provided as an exchange for a crime statute or can be traced back to a crime statute.”
Cheng’s lawyer responded by denying the money had been used in criminal activity and disputing the basis of the seizure.
Henry Minh, Inc., denies that the currency, which was first seized during the execution of a search warrant, was actually seized before the search warrant was issued, and was then seized again by the execution.
The family’s lawyer also noted that the prosecutor had violated the notice-pleading standards of the state “by failing” to specify what criminal offense was intended to be the basis for forfeiture.
Court documents reveal that the state failed to name any specific crimes that were committed nor provide any evidence of illegal activity.
The Chengs’ situation reflects the problems of civil asset forfeiture. This practice allows law enforcement agencies to seize property they believe has been used in committing a crime. Unfortunately, local, state, and federal government institutions have abused civil asset forfeiture to increase revenue. This is at the expense of people who don’t usually have the resources to fight back.
