Specialty Towing had already been in the news over a viral video where they tried to tow a moving car, and an SF City Attorney suspension, but now they’ve got bigger problems as the FBI raided their Oakdale Avenue location Thursday morning.

In April, San Francisco got a pretty good laugh when a tow truck from a company called Specialty Towing attempted to tow a moving, occupied car, and upon getting busted, sped from the scene rather dangerously. (This is seen in the video below.) But prior to that in February, SF City Attorney Davd Chiu barred Specialty Towing from getting any city contracts, and Mission Local reported that among their alleged misdeeds was a co-owner buying a Lamborghini while collecting welfare.

These, or completely unknown and yet-unrevealed reasons, may be why Specialty Towing’s Bayview location was raided by the FBI Thursday morning, according to KPIX. NBC Bay Area’s Sergio Quintana was on the scene, and reported that “Employees of the towing service say they don’t know what’s happening,” and that “They arrived at work to find about a dozen agents.” So not a good morning at the Specialty Towing location at 2045 Oakdale Avenue.

Quintana added that neighbors spotted the agents at the towing location at 7:30 am Thursday morning, and the agents used what neighbors “describe as flash bang grenades” to gain entry into the towing service’s office and tow yards. The FBI confirmed to KPIX that they were carrying out a “court-authorized law enforcement activity” there, and that station adds that SFPD officers assisted the FBI on executing their warrant.


Again, we have no official confirmation of why this raid is happening. But SF City Attorney David Chiu’s February suspension of Specialty Towing getting any city contracts named the company’s co-owners Abigail Fuentes and Jose Badillo in the Lamborghini welfare scheme. The pair also owns Auto Towing and Jose’s Towing, both of which also received the same penalty.    

In August 2023, Chiu also alleged that Auto Towing was illegally towing cars from private parking lots without those parking lots’ owners’ permission, and towing the cars to the lot at Specialty Towing. Chiu’s office said the company’s owners “installed fraudulent signs on private property to deceive vehicle owners, limited the times vehicles could be retrieved, and pressured vehicle owners to pay in cash.”

The NBC Bay Area tweets note that “One of the [FBI] agents had a bag of keys and was going through them trying to unlock a tow truck that was parked in the street.” The SF Standard has the additional amusing detail that Specialty Towing had “allegedly illegally parked its vehicles on the street.”

Related: FBI Agents Raid Home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao [SFist]

Image via Google Street View