Two brothers who built one of Southern California’s biggest towing operations are now at the center of a nearly 6 million dollar workers’ compensation fraud case. Investigators say the owners of Hadley Tow and related companies systematically hid payroll and misclassified workers, allowing them to slash insurance costs while employees handled some of the most dangerous work on the road.
Authorities allege the scheme stretched over several years and touched multiple towing brands and locations, from Whittier to other parts of Los Angeles County. The case is emerging as a test of how aggressively regulators and prosecutors will pursue premium fraud in industries where on-the-job injuries are common and insurance costs are steep.
Brothers behind major towing brands face felony charges
At the center of the case are brothers and tow company owners Mark Hassan and Ahmed Hassan, who authorities describe as operators of one of the largest towing businesses in Southern California. According to state insurance officials, Mark Hassan, 46, of Corona Del Mar, and Ahmed Hassan, 35, of Walnut were arrested on multiple counts of felony insurance fraud tied to their towing operations across the region, including Hadley Tow and California Heights Tow. The arrests followed a multi-agency investigation that focused on how the companies reported payroll and job duties to their workers’ compensation carriers.
Regulators say the brothers’ towing network handled contracts with law enforcement agencies throughout Southern California, which gave the businesses a steady flow of work from crashes, impounds, and freeway incidents. That scale, investigators argue, made any underreporting of payroll particularly significant for the workers’ compensation system, since premiums in high-risk sectors like towing are calculated directly from wage and job classification data…