Jose Vicente Badillo is facing up to 20 years in prison on charges that he plotted to set his competitors’ tow trucks on fire, fraudulently applied for and collected more than $150,000 in welfare benefits with his wife, Abigail Fuentes, and illegally towed vehicles across San Francisco and other cities.
The couple’s methods purportedly included placing fake “no parking” signs on private lots and towing every vehicle on them, targeting areas populated by largely Spanish and Cantonese speakers, and — in one case — trying to tow a car in downtown San Francisco that had stopped at an intersection, with the driver still inside. This last one was caught on video.
Facing federal charges on five different counts allegedly hasn’t stopped Badillo and Fuentes from towing cars.
Almost “nightly,” say tenants at Bayview Apartments, a tow truck arrives at the low-income housing complex around 2 a.m.
“They creep up, pulling up with no lights on,” said Dante, a resident at the subsidized housing complex atop “The Hill,” a group of four low-income apartment buildings in the southeast corner of the city. “They just sit there, waiting.”
Earlier in the year, tenants at the four apartments, La Salle, Bayview, Shoreview and All Hallows, each managed by the developer Related California, say, the trucks had labels that read “Auto Towing.” Sometime after, they were replaced by unmarked vehicles. In recent months, a new logo has appeared: “City Towing.”
The city attorney’s office confirmed to Mission Local that Badillo and Fuentes no longer have a permit to tow in San Francisco.
In February 2024, City Attorney David Chiu signed an order of debarment prohibiting the couple and their past three companies (Auto Towing, Speciality Towing and Jose’s Towing) from contracting with the city. But Badillo and Fuentes may still be towing cars — just under a new name.
“We do believe that City Towing is affiliated with Auto Towing and Specialty Towing,” Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney’s office, said in a statement to Mission Local. “These operators do not have a valid permit to tow cars in San Francisco.”
The registered owner of City Towing, which has been towing cars in the Bayview, is listed as David Antonio Holmes.
A worker who picked up the phone informed Mission Local that Holmes only speaks Spanish, denied that City Towing is affiliated with Badillo and Fuentes, and added that they were unaware of any investigation into the company conducted by the city attorney’s office.
Residents disagree. They have seen the employees who visit night after night in “City Towing” trucks, they say. They look a lot like the employees who drove the trucks labeled “Auto Towing.”
Jerry L. Steering, a California civil rights lawyer, said that unethical towing companies sometimes target low-income areas through a practice called “patrol towing:” monitoring an area until late at night, when residents are asleep, and then towing cars en masse.
If a tenant can’t afford to pay to get their car back, the company can still make a profit by selling the vehicle to an auction, or privately. For a tow truck company, says Steering, a subsidized housing complex like those on “The Hill” is like “fishing in a fish hatchery.”
Residents of the complexes receive one parking permit per household, residents said. Households with multiple vehicles or overnight visitors often park in the lot overnight due to available space and a lack of other options.
One tenant at Bayview Apartments, who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said her vehicle was towed in the middle of the night in February. She said that City Towing asked her to pay nearly $500 to recover her car — in cash. “I couldn’t afford that,” said the tenant. She hasn’t seen her car since.
The city attorney’s original statement in February 2024, after debarring Auto Towing from contracting with the city, states that the company was known to “illegally tow cars of vulnerable individuals from a private commercial parking lot, limit the times vehicles could be retrieved, and pressure vehicle owners to pay in cash.”
To legally tow from private property, a tow company must get the permission of the owner. In the case of Bayview Apartments, that would be Related California (the complex’s property manager) or Resolute Security (its contracted security company).
Residents told Mission Local that a security guard at the complex had authorized tows in the past. The city attorney’s office says that since contacting Related California, the outfit has agreed to no longer call or authorize City Towing to tow vehicles at its apartments.
But residents say that the tow trucks keep coming.
Tenants say that often, security guards appear to be supporting the tow truck company in towing vehicles. They describe security guards urging residents whose cars have just been lifted onto the truck to pay the tow truck driver immediately, and in cash, in order to stop a tow in progress.
That practice is known as asking for a “drop fee,” says Steering, the civil rights lawyer. “That’s just plain extortion,” he adds. While not uncommon, accepting money to release a car before it has left private property is illegal.
In a video shared with Mission Local, taken on June 4, 2025, at 10:32 p.m. at La Salle Apartments, security guards stand in between a group of about half a dozen tenants and a City Towing truck as it releases a car back onto the ground.
A witness said that shortly before the incident, two car owners each paid City Towing $200 in cash while on private property in order to get their vehicles back.
Related California and Resolute Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Others have woken up to find their cars gone. One tenant, who wished to remain anonymous, said her son’s car has been towed twice, costing $500 and $700, respectively.
On a visit to Bayview Apartments on Aug. 28, multiple signs were posted around the property instructing viewers to report illegally parked cars to “Auto Towing.”
Semetha Hill, who lives in the complex, said her car has been towed multiple times by trucks labeled with both Auto Towing and City Towing within the last year.
In one case, Hill says she woke up to a security guard flashing a light in her bedroom window, telling her that her car had just been towed. When Hill called the tow truck company asking where to pick it up, she says a staff member told her that “they couldn’t find her car.”
When she eventually found it, she says that one of the hubcaps was damaged. Hill has lived at the apartment complex for 15 years, she said, and had a permit to park in the lot. The tow truck company told her it was expired.
“It’s ridiculous,” chimed in a neighbor, overhearing Hill. “It happens every day.”
Thank you for your help and getting this story out for the community to know what is happening in the community
Someone needs to deal with the individuals personally. Someone will step up.
So take down the tow signs. Just take them down. Remove the tow signs!!
Why are they still operating this business. They are clearly taking advantage of the leniency they’ve been given. No consequences, why stop.
While ICE agents chase down law-abiding refugees at immigration court, no one is able to shut City/Auto/Specialty towing down for extortion and theft? Confiscate their trucks. You can find them all parked at the corner of Oakdale and Industrial.
Funny that the phone number listed on that sign for “Auto Towing” once belonged to Abigail Fuentes. You can find that info on many data broker websites.