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Glendale market owner asks Phoenix federal court to return property seized in 2025 raid
Mario Ayala says federal agents seized about $460,000 from his Glendale business in February 2025, and he still has not received the property or a criminal charge. His lawsuit seeks the return of the items and the full warrants used in the search.
A Glendale market owner has sued the federal government, seeking the return of cash, computers and other property seized from his business during a raid in February 2025.
Mario Ayala filed the case Tuesday in federal court in Phoenix. His attorneys say agents took an estimated $460,000 from Ayala’s Mini Market, near 67th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, and that Ayala has not been criminally charged. The lawsuit also asks the government to provide the complete warrants for the search.
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS searched the business on Feb. 25, 2025. Ayala’s attorneys say agents told his family the market could continue operating and that they would receive information about recovering the seized property, but that information never arrived.
Ayala was in Mexico visiting his sick father when relatives called to tell him about the raid. He returned early to deal with the situation; his father died about a month later. “For me, it was traumatizing,” Ayala said in Spanish, through an interpreter.
Ayala said he started the money-services business eight years ago as part of what he described as his American dream. He is now trying to keep it operating despite the financial strain. “The hardest part was having to start from zero to rebuild the business in a worse position, because I did not have the funds,” he said.
Katrin Marquez, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, said Ayala’s business was among 19 money-services businesses in the Valley raided around the same period. She said investigators suspected the businesses of failing to report large transactions to the IRS, a practice known as structuring. Marquez said that allegation does not, by itself, resolve whether keeping the property for so long is justified.
“Even if the original search was justified, once they continue the seizure for such a long period of time without providing a proper justification, it becomes unreasonable,” Marquez said, arguing that the continued seizure violates the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit challenges the retention of the property; the claims have not been decided by a court.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations said the agency does not comment on active lawsuits.