Daily Journal staff reports
Police found nearly $50,000 worth of cash and marijuana in a safe at a Franklin home, and the case is under investigation.
The investigation into the home in Camelot Estates, a subdivision off Jefferson Street west of U.S. 31, started Wednesday when Franklin police got information from Illinois State Police, who had learned that detectives might find a large safe with money and drugs inside the home in the 400 block of Lancelot Drive, the Franklin Police Department said in a news release.
Police found 9 pounds of marijuana, which has a street value of about $27,000, and $21,000 in cash inside the safe, the news release said.
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No one has been arrested, and the case is under investigation, Franklin Police Chief Tim O’Sullivan said.
The results of the investigation, which includes some testing, will be sent to the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office to decide what, if any, charges to file against any suspects.
The home is occupied by a family, and one person is jailed in another state, O’Sullivan said. The person who kept the safe in the home did not live there, O’Sullivan said.
Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper said the investigation is ongoing as to who could eventually be charged and how the drugs and money got into a safe in Franklin.
Franklin police had enough specific information from the tip and an arrest in Illinois to get a search warrant for the safe on Wednesday night. The safe is so large that it alone is worth $5,000, O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan called the amount of money and drugs seized substantial and said it would make a dent to the suspect’s drug dealing operation.
Cooper said that the amount of cash is sizable for a community the size of Johnson County, but by far not the largest.
In 2015, police found 19 kilograms of cocaine and more than $2 million in a Greenwood hotel room during a raid as part of a federal drug trafficking investigation.
Police are seeing a substantial increase in marijuana being shipped or brought to Indiana from states such as Colorado, where marijuana use is legal, Cooper said.
