photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Kansas Highway Patrol officers on Sept. 4, 2025 are shown on the scene of Lawrence Kia, 1225 E. 23rd Street.

UPDATED 5:47 p.m. Sept. 4

Multiple Kansas Highway Patrol troopers spent hours Thursday blocking the driveway and scouring the property of the Lawrence Kia dealership in an operation that was connected to the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Exactly what the law enforcement officers were doing and the status of the Kia dealership remained unclear as of Thursday evening.

Beginning Thursday morning a Highway Patrol vehicle was stationed at the entrance to the Lawrence Kia dealership at 1225 E. 23rd St. A state trooper turned away several vehicles that sought to enter the dealership during the time period the Journal-World was on the site.

A law enforcement official on the scene told a Journal-World reporter that there was no spokesperson on site, but questions about the incident should be directed to the Kansas Department of Revenue.

The Kansas Department of Revenue is the lead enforcement agency when businesses fail to pay sales taxes and Kansas withholding taxes. However, an official with the revenue department said Thursday afternoon she was not aware of any such cases regarding the dealership. Later in the day, though, the official said the Kia matter indeed was connected to a Kansas Department of Revenue matter that fell outside her normal duties. She said a KDOR spokesman was expected to release details about the incident soon, but as of 5 p.m. Thursday, the Journal-World hadn’t received a response to multiple inquiries.

During the time the Journal-World was on the scene, a law enforcement officer blocked the front door of the building, and several people who appeared to be employees of the business stood outside the dealership’s offices.

An attempt to reach an owner/operator of the dealership was not successful on Thursday afternoon. A passerby reported that at about 4:30 p.m., the dealership appeared to be open and the law enforcement presence had left. Lawrence Kia did not post any information about the incident on its active Facebook page on Thursday.

While details of Thursday’s incident are unknown, the dealership has found itself mired in controversy before.

As the Journal-World reported in June 2023, an arbitrator awarded more than $14 million in damages to a group of 31 customers who had alleged they were the victims of a loan scheme that involved false information being submitted to lenders.

Douglas County District Court Judge James McCabria upheld the decision of the arbitrator. In June 2023 the Journal-World reported that there were signs of an imminent settlement between the parties and the dealership, which could have appealed McCabria’s ruling to a higher court. Douglas County court documents show no signs that McCabria’s ruling was ever overturned, meaning the arbitrator’s decision would still stand, unless the parties agreed to a settlement.

The Journal-World in June 2020 was the first to report on allegations that officials with the Lawrence Kia dealership were altering loan applications of some of their customers. The allegations at the time centered on the idea that local Kia officials were inflating the monthly income totals of customers who were seeking financing to buy a vehicle from the dealership.

A source at the time provided the Journal-World with documents for more than a dozen customers that showed income amounts on loan applications did not match the income amounts customers had provided to the dealership.

The contention was that such higher income levels might make it more likely that a customer would be approved for a loan or give customers confidence in buying a more expensive vehicle than they originally envisioned.

Arbitrator Leland Shurin indeed found that the Kia dealership’s “scheme of misconduct” increased the dealership’s gross profit by roughly $1.2 million, according to the judgment in the case.

It wasn’t clear Thursday whether the most recent law enforcement action at the dealership had any connection to those allegations.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Kansas Highway Patrol officers on Sept. 4, 2025 are shown on the scene of Lawrence Kia, 1225 E. 23rd Street.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Kansas Highway Patrol officers on Sept. 4, 2025 were on the scene of Lawrence Kia, 1225 E. 23rd Street.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Kansas Highway Patrol officers on Sept. 4, 2025 are shown on the scene of Lawrence Kia, 1225 E. 23rd Street.