A lawsuit claims members of law enforcement are illegally confiscating cash found in packages at the FedEx hub at the Indianapolis International Airport.
A jeweler in California told I-Team 8 that one of its customers wanted to pay them in cash, so they 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 cash inside.
Business owner Henry Cheng said, “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.”
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 drugs were in the box. Instead, police opened it and found and seized the money.
Cheng’s lawyer, Marie Miller with the Institute for Justice, said, “One of the problems is that suspicious characteristics can be completely innocuous. Like taping all the sides of a box, which is exactly what FedEx advises its customers to do. A drug dog alerted to it, which is not uncommon when there’s money involved, because so much money is tainted with the scent of drugs.”
No drugs were actually found in the box, but the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office still filed in court to seize the money. The office has argued in court filings that the cash was the proceeds of a crime.
Miller said, “Indiana can’t be taking money from packages simply because they pass through Indiana without any ties to Indiana crimes.”
The Marion County Prosecutors Office told News 8 that it does not comment on pending litigation against them.
Cheng’s lawyer says he is not alone. The law firm is expanding its lawsuit into a class-action against the prosecutor’s office and the state.
“There are hundreds of examples of people that this has happened to,” Miller said.
So, is the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office essentially using the FedEx facility as its own piggy bank?
Miller said, “Essentially. It’s like a money growing on trees. It’s money flowing on conveyor belts in packages. They find it, take it and keep it. Most of the time people don’t just contest the forfeiture because the property owners are out of state. It costs money to contest forfeiture in court, hire an attorney, and often the amount of money that they’ll lose is less than or about the same as what it would cost to fight to get it back.”
Cheng wants his lawsuit to change how Marion County seizes cash from packages at the FedEx facility. “They can apply the law to the criminals, but do not abuse the law to the law abiding citizens like myself.”
The next court hearing in this lawsuit will be in September.
The Indiana Attorney General’s Office also released a statement:
“The Attorney General always seeks to see justice being served. To that end, officers obtained a search warrant by a court, and the parties were served to demonstrate their lawful interest in the cash seized. We expect that the Court will weigh the competing interests and determine whether the cash can be lawfully retained.”