Israeli police seized my cash and laptop and I have flown home to France. How do I get them back?

It usually happens at the airport or during a search that had nothing to do with you, and the receipt you were handed is a single line in Hebrew. Then the flight home to Paris leaves and the property stays in an evidence room in Israel. Israeli law does not treat that as the end of the matter. Section 34 of the Criminal Procedure (Arrest and Search) Ordinance [New Version] 5729-1969 lets a Magistrates Court order a seized item delivered to a person claiming a right in it, and the application does not require you to come back.

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Detailed Answer

The framework runs across four sections of the same Ordinance. Section 32 gives a police officer the power to seize an object where there is reasonable ground to believe an offence has been or is about to be committed with it, or that it may serve as evidence. Section 33 lets the police hold the item until it is brought before a court, subject to Section 34. Section 34 is the operative provision for an owner: on the application of a police officer or of a person claiming a right in the object, the Magistrates Court may order that the item be delivered to that person or dealt with as the court directs, on conditions it sets. Two things about that power are worth understanding before you file. The order is about possession and not about ownership, so a court that returns your laptop has decided who holds it rather than who owns it, and the police keep the right to ask for it again if the investigation revives. Section 35 supplies the deadline that most often ends these cases: if within six months of the seizure no prosecution has been brought in which the item is needed as evidence, the police must return it to the person from whom it was taken, absent a court extension.

Cash is the harder category and needs separating from the phone and the laptop. Where money was seized on suspicion of a money laundering or currency reporting offence, the police will resist a Section 34 application and press for a forfeiture route instead, and the practical answer is usually documentary: bank statements showing the withdrawal, the customs declaration if one was made, and evidence of the purpose of the trip. Our answer on declaring cash travelling between France and Israel sets out the reporting thresholds that decide whether the seizure was lawful in the first place.

In Practice: Under Section 34 of the Criminal Procedure (Arrest and Search) Ordinance [New Version] 5729-1969 a Magistrates Court may order a seized item delivered to a person claiming a right in it, and Section 35 requires return where no prosecution needing the item as evidence has been filed within six months of seizure. A straightforward application is normally listed within three to eight weeks, the court fee is modest at roughly NIS 550, and Israeli legal fees for an uncontested application typically run NIS 4,000 to NIS 12,000. The Israel Police exhibits unit will not release anything without either the court order or a written police decision, whatever the officer said at the time.

From France the whole file is run by your Israeli lawyer. The power of attorney is signed before a French notary and, since 1 May 2025, apostilled by the notary rather than by a court, which removes a step that used to add weeks. The affidavit setting out your right in the property is sworn the same way. Two habits help more than anything else: keep the seizure receipt and the officer's name, and write to the investigating unit early asking in writing what the status of the file is, because the six month clock in Section 35 runs from the seizure and a case that has quietly gone nowhere is the easiest one to close.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• The seizure involved cash above the reporting threshold, since the police will treat that as a currency or money laundering matter and a Section 34 application filed without the source documents invites a forfeiture response.
• You are still a suspect or a witness in the underlying investigation, because an application for the return of property is read alongside your position in the file and the timing needs thought.
• Six months have passed and the police have neither charged anyone nor returned the item, which is the point at which Section 35 turns a request into an entitlement worth pressing.

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

We apply to the Israeli courts for the return of seized property on behalf of travellers who have already gone home, deal with the exhibits unit directly, and press the six month rule where an investigation has stalled.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.