San Francisco man convicted in $1.5 million insurance fraud scheme

Bay Area drivers already face some of the highest auto insurance costs in the country, and a federal jury verdict in San Francisco showed one reason why: a fraud ring built around already-wrecked cars that pushed fake claims onto insurers and real costs onto everyone else.

Colin Jackson, 39, of San Francisco, was convicted Wednesday after a seven-day trial before U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors said Jackson worked with others, including previously convicted defendant Kirill Afanasyev, to carry out a 2018 scheme involving an undrivable car that had already been wrecked.

According to court evidence, Jackson got an insurance policy on the car in June 2018 and made false statements in the application, including about his estimated annual mileage. Five months later, in November 2018, Jackson and Afanasyev submitted a fake-accident claim. The insurer paid about $27,000, which prosecutors said matched the vehicle’s replacement value.

Jurors also heard that the 2018 case was not Jackson’s first run at the same playbook. In a similar 2017 scheme, Jackson and Afanasyev collected about $30,000 from the same insurer on another already-wrecked car titled in Jackson’s name. Jackson is scheduled to be sentenced September 25, 2026.

The conviction is part of Operation Hammer Down, a federal investigation that prosecutors say uncovered more than 50 fraudulent insurance claims and losses of more than $1.5 million. More than a dozen defendants have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial in the broader case, which federal authorities have described as a coordinated pipeline of staged damage claims, false paperwork and towing-industry connections across the Bay Area.

That broader sweep has already reached Jose Vicente Badillo, the former owner of Jose’s Towing, Auto Towing and Specialty Towing. Badillo was sentenced February 13 to 27 months in federal prison for his role in a separate insurance-fraud conspiracy that ran from at least 2017 through at least 2021. His prison term will run concurrently with a separate 60-month sentence for arson conspiracy.

Federal investigators have said the fraud network extended beyond a single bad claim, with related conduct spanning San Francisco and San Mateo County, including a staged crash on Guadalupe Canyon Parkway. For insurers, the pattern is costly. For drivers in San Francisco and across California, it means higher premiums, slower claims processing and more suspicion each time a legitimate accident has to be sorted from a staged one.