Crime

Towing? A legitimate business, except when it isn't

February 21, 2019, 8:59 AM

In what might be the journalistic understatement of the day, Kim Russell's WXYZ-TV report on towing issues in Metro Detroit starts like this:

Featured_bobbystowing_33656
Sign at Bobby's Towing
(Photo: Nisha McMillion-Bentley, via Google)

When you hear the word towing you might think money, corruption, and trouble. Despite the fact there are legitimate towing business, far too often there are also illegitimate activities.

You don't say. This is what makes Russell's report, an omnibus of towing complaints, so relevant. Remember the raids in Taylor earlier this week? Guess where that came from?

FBI agents wiretapped towing titan Gasper Fiore's phone three years ago and heard allegations involving Taylor Mayor Rick Sollars and a lucrative towing contract, according to sealed court records that hint at the possible roots of a new corruption investigation. . . .

In 2016, FBI agents were investigating public corruption and targeting more than a dozen politicians and businessmen, including Fiore and Detroit Councilman Gabe Leland.

In May 2016, Fiore spoke during one wiretapped conversation to a man named Nicholas Primus. Primus described a recent lunch with the Taylor mayor, according to the wiretap affidavit.

Towing does include legitimate businesses, but with so many bad actors, it's sometimes hard to tell them apart.

In other words, towing is absolutely, positively, something you don't want to have happen to your car, and if it does? Prepare to spend, because towing contracts are lucrative for a very good reason. 


Read more:  WXYZ


Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day