Jeweler will get back $42,000 seized at FedEx hub at IND airport
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A jeweler in California who questioned the Indianapolis police and Marion County prosecutor’s seizure of a FedEx package with a $42,000 cash payment will have the money returned, a law firm reports.
Business owner Henry Cheng told I-Team in August, “I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just a straight business. A legit business, so I don’t know why they’re holding my money.”
Henry and Minh Cheng’s jewelry business has operated for about 30 years in California.
In an Indiana lawsuit, the Chengs said police were illegally confiscating cash found in packages at the FedEx hub at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Cheng told I-Team 8 in August that one of its customers, a retailer in Virginia, wanted to pay in cash, so the customer put money into a box and shipped it through FedEx. When that box was at a facility near the airport, the jeweler says, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department illegally took the box and the more than $42,000 in case inside.
An IMPD officer deemed the FedEx package with the cash payment as suspicious because it was taped in a certain way. Police took it away and had a drug dog sniff it. The dog alerted the officer that drugs were in the box. Police opened it and, instead of drugs, found the money and seized it.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office filed in court to seize the money, arguing that the cash was the proceeds of a crime.
Cheng’s lawyer, Marie Miller with The Institute for Justice, said in a news release issued Tuesday, “Indiana had no basis to forfeit the Chengs’ money, and so it’s only right that the government has agreed to return it. But many other people are affected by the state’s practices of taking money simply because it goes through Indiana and failing to identify a crime that would justify the forfeiture. The counterclaims aim to end this abuse of civil forfeiture not just for Henry and Minh, but for everyone.”
Chang said in the news release, “I’m ecstatic at the prospect of getting my money back, and this is just the beginning. What happened to my company shouldn’t happen to anyone. Indiana should stop trying to steal from law-abiding citizens by seizing property and figuring out later whether there’s any basis for keeping it.”
Since 2022, Indiana has begun proceedings to forfeit more than $2.5 million from in-transit parcels, and the state has already taken $1 million from those parcels, according to the nonprofit The Institute for Justice law firm, based near Washington, D.C.
Previous reporting from I-Team 8’s Kody Fisher was used in this article.