In my continuing quest to find out more about how prosecutors and police use forfeiture, their immense power to take possession of property involved in criminal investigations, I came upon a list of the biggest federal seizures - those worth over $1 million. Together, these big-dollar forfeitures added up to $860 million in fiscal year 2013. Two of them occurred in Minneapolis. So I set about trying to find more about how the Department of Justice came to acquire $1,822,129 and $1,699,887 in cold cash in the City of Lakes.

To give you an idea of how big that is, the average forfeiture amount in the state last year was $1,408.

The federal list included only the city and the amount. So I filed a Freedom of Information Act request on May 27 with the department to find out more. On Aug. 25, I got my answer - on a two-line spreadsheet. It turns out the two forfeitures were related to a husband-wife team of fraudster physicians who hailed from Kemah, Texas, a suburb of Houston. According to the FBI, Dr. Arun Sharma and his wife, Dr. Kiran Sharma, ran a chain of clinics that were the vehicle for a swindle of Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies. They did it by providing narcotics that patients didn't need, or simply concocting insurance claims for procedures that weren't performed and medications that were never provided.

They got away with it for a decade, and in the process amassed a fortune that they sank into real estate, investment accounts and cash squirreled away all over the place, including in Minneapolis. With the Sharmas now serving lengthy prison terms, the feds have moved to forfeit assets worth $43 million. That included the two tidy sums seized in Minneapolis on March 11, 2011.

Now where were the Sharmas storing money in Minneapolis? In a safe deposit box? A storage unit? A mattress? In the spreadsheet given to me by the agency, there was reference to an "attached affidavit" by an FBI agent that was not attached. One sum was apparently in an investment or brokerage account, but was converted to cash. The case documents filed in the federal court database gave no clue. So I put the question to Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in South Texas, which prosecuted the Sharmas. "There is nothing I have available in the public record that can provide any additional assistance," Dodge said in an email.

The mystery remains, but I'm still on the case. Meanwhile, here's a map of all the big dollar forfeitures of cash, airplanes, paintings, jewelry and other valuables: