More than $30,000 in cash seized from two Indiana massage parlors is missing.
Police seized the money in November 2023 as part of a joint state and local raid on two northern Indiana massage parlors—Jade Massage in Winfield and Relax Spa in Crown Point—and associated businesses and houses. Authorities began investigating the spas after allegedly receiving anonymous tips that prostitution took place there.
Four penis massages for an undercover detective later, authorities raided the businesses and seized more than $97,000 in cash, along with a car. Spa owners Guan Yu and Wujiao Liu, a married couple, were arrested. Their case is ongoing—and their cash is missing.
State police are now investigating what happened. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation for the missing cash; this could well come down to carelessness, not corruption. Regardless, this case represents yet another instance of police profiting off sex work criminalization.
The Search for the Missing Cash
Robert Byrd, who was sworn in as Winfield’s town marshal in April 2025, “assumed that the money had been placed in a secure account established through the Winfield Clerk-treasurer’s Office or a local bank,” reports the Post-Tribune.
It wasn’t.
Eventually, Byrd tracked some of the seized cash down to a rented storage locker, where bills and coins were stashed in plastic bins.
But Byrd could locate only $63,473.86 of the $97,014.37 that was taken. $33,540.51 was missing.
Lake County prosecutor Bernard A. Carter has now asked Indiana state police “to thoroughly investigate this matter and to make every effort to recover the missing funds.” The state police agreed.
The fact that it took some sleuthing for Byrd to discover where the money was stored is itself incredible. Evidence is supposed to be well-tracked and well-documented. And cash seized during an investigation could eventually need to be returned (remember, no one has yet been convicted in this case).
And if this turns out to be more than just sloppy police work? That wouldn’t exactly be surprising, given the perverse incentives and ample opportunities for corruption that massage parlor prostitution cases present.
The Massage Parlor Raid Racket
Anonymous tips about sexual services being offered along with massages can be used to justify months of undercover visits from law enforcement agents seeking massages. (Later, they will say the masseuses could be trafficking victims—which, if true, would make their months of visits without intervention especially cruel.) And any offer of sex acts with massages can be used to justify raids.
Asian massage parlors tend to be cash-heavy businesses, so there’s often plenty of cash around to seize—and, unlike when you seize money from bank accounts, no definitive record trail. The workers and owners at these businesses are often immigrants, for whom language barriers and other considerations could make it harder to fight back. And if police throw a “human trafficking” allegation in there, no mater how unsubstantiated, everyone just shrugs at whatever happens to those arrested and pats police on the back for a job well done.
Missing money aside, the Winfield case is a fine indictment of how so many massage parlor raid cases operate.
Hellbound and Down 