It was a classic Philly car accident.

At 9:30am on a weekday in June, a mother of seven driving a Chrysler Town & Country is stopped an unusually long distance from a red light on S. Broad Street, looking at her phone. I am in my Kia, parked in the same direction. As I pull out in front of her, she suddenly accelerates toward the light, slamming into my fender so hard that a piece of it falls off.

The driver will drive away from this, but not me. My door won’t close. I call the police. As I wait on a tree-less sidewalk with the sun beating down, a tow truck shows up.

“I can tow your car for you — just tell me where you want it to go,” the driver tells me. Physically fine but shocked, I’m grateful for the offer. Finally, I think, something is going right.

Why is my car in DELCO?!?

The savior introduces himself as an employee with Casablanca Towing & Recovery. He tells me Casablanca is fully licensed and insured, and shows me photos of recent crash sites where he’d towed cars. He also says my insurance will cover the tow and instructs me to sign an empty box on his screen that, he says, authorizes him to take the car to my preferred collision garage in Fishtown. I gratefully sign, thank him profusely, remove my belongings from the vehicle and pack myself into a friend’s tiny Miata for a ride home.

Hours later, I check in with the owner of the garage where I’d been told my car was going. The car hasn’t arrived. I track it to an address in Ridley Park. WHY IS MY CAR IN DELCO? In a panic, I call Casablanca’s dispatch. The person who answers tells me I am not allowed access to my own car. “We’re keeping the car until the insurance adjuster comes out,” she says. “It’s how the process works.”

I say I want my car to go to the collision garage now, per what I believe to be the verbal agreement at the accident scene, and that my collision mechanic will come pick it up. “That’s not how it’s done,” she says. “You signed a waiver.”

Wait — What?

Welcome to the world of unauthorized towing, car-crash edition. We’ve all dealt with or at least heard of tow trucks removing parked vehicles they may or may not be allowed to, and then charging exorbitant impoundment fees to release them.

It turns out, there’s an entire industry listening to police scanners in order to get to accident scenes before the police and convince unwitting vehicle owners to essentially sign over their vehicles. I hadn’t paid attention at the time, but looking back, I realize at least one other tow truck driver turned up at my accident site before the police did.

What happened to me and my car is obviously not unusual. It might not even be illegal — at least, not at the moment.

So, your car’s towed. Now what?

The next day, with my car still held hostage in Delco, I bike to police headquarters at 400 N. Broad Street. “Yeah, this is what the wreck chasers do,” says the officer at the window, nodding as I list the steps the tow-truck driver went through to take possession of my car.

A sergeant comes out and speaks to me, literally standing under a poster warning citizens to “know your rights after a vehicle accident.” To paraphrase: My tow-truck company ticked all the boxes in the poster’s “illegal towing practices column,” which include “approaching those involved in an accident without being called” and “misrepresenting fees or where your vehicle is going.”

What I understand from the PPD sergeant is that pretty much regardless of what Casablanca’s driver said and did before I allowed him to tow my car, I allowed it, and that makes it “a civil matter because of the contract,” the sergeant says.

What contract? When I signed onto a blank screen, it allowed the tow company to superimpose my signature onto onerous terms emailed to me after my car was removed —that no one, not even while in shock, would ever willingly sign. For the PPD, this is a contract dispute, not a criminal act.

In 2005, Philadelphia City Council dealt with an adjacent issue, establishing a system of rotational towing under Section 906-5 of the City Code. The new regulations empowered police to order a tow from authorized and regulated companies while at an accident scene, creating a standard order and list of authorized towing companies to use, one after the next.

In 2017, City Council passed Bill No. 171001 amending Section 9-605 to establish fixed fees and tighten standards for companies in the rotational tow program as a result of predatory towing.

In 20 pages of rules, regulations and procedures, the towing code does nothing to address tow operators operating outside the rotational system other than to state that “any person … whose vehicle is towed other than in circumstances authorized by this Section or otherwise authorized by law, shall have a right of action against such towing company in a court of competent jurisdiction.” In other words, I’m welcome to file a civil lawsuit against my tow company — but am not protected from predatory actions.

In 20 pages of rules, regulations and procedures, the City’s towing code does nothing to address tow operators operating outside the rotational system.

To be clear, according to the City Code, if a City-authorized towing company engages in wreck-chasing, solicitations, or price-gouging, they face “serious penalties, including immediate removal from the City’s approved tow list.” But unauthorized towing companies pretty much go unchecked.

The City offers a webpage that makes it look easy to report predatory towing, but that’s only for companies authorized to be in the police rotation. I can’t get past the first screen to file a report; my tow is off the books, so there’s no record of it. I do, however, file a standard 311 complaint. As I lay out the circumstances of the tow, the 311 rep says, “I know I’ve filed at least one report about that company before.”

My insurance company promises they will help. “We’re very familiar with the tow companies operating in the Philly area and we’re used to dealing with them,” a patient and calm representative tells me when I basically melt down on our call. “Don’t worry — we will get your car out.”

Meanwhile, back in Fishtown, Ben Zoref, the owner of the garage I wanted my car to go to, isn’t ready to give up. He gives me the number for the PPD’s Major Crimes Division, where at least one officer specializes in tow-truck investigations. The office I speak with is so well-versed in the script that he basically finishes my sentences as I tell him my story. “I can’t believe I was so naive,” I say.

“It’s not your fault,” he replies. “People are in shock after an accident. They [the tow-truck drivers] prey on people.”

While the officer agrees with the PPD sergeant that the car cannot be considered stolen, he immediately calls the tow company and suggests they release my car. Minutes later, my phone is flooded with calls, with Casablanca’s manager “Sam” saying he had no idea there was a problem, since I signed off on all the terms, and that of course I could come pick up my car in Ridley Park any time before 3pm. Zoref, coming in clutch once again, quickly dispatches his own tow truck.

Zoref says he’s recently been hearing more stories like mine: “Tow companies hold the car three, four weeks until the adjuster can get out there and negotiate a price.” This time lag eventually increases your insurance premium, because insurers pass on wait-time costs to consumers. One law-enforcement professional compared car-insurance companies to casinos, saying “the house never loses.”

The profile of a wreck chaser

With my car liberated from impoundment, I get curious about Casablanca Towing & Recovery. Turns out, they’ve been in the news before, with a similar story of soliciting a tow and holding a vehicle for excessive fees in 2024.

I start digging into the company’s owner, Same Laghzaoui, age 26, whose Facebook page cites his hometown as Casablanca, Morocco. In the three counties I searched for cases related to Laghzaoui, which include Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia, I find:

• • Seventeen counts of traffic/motor vehicle violations since 2020, including driving without a license and reckless driving.
  • Nine still-active bench warrants in Philadelphia and Montgomery counties, stemming from failure to satisfy or appear for prior traffic court dockets.
  • Three active tax liens on a residential property in Montgomery County.
  • Three mortgage foreclosure filings against Laghzaoui for the same Montgomery County property, with two judgments entered against him.
  • Three filings for consumer credit/civil debt with three judgments entered.
  • One municipal dispute, with Laghzaoui’s appeal still active as of May 2026.

In a reply to emailed questions about his business practices and various legal issues, Laghzaoui wrote that he would “deny to comment to any of your questions,” which he called “slander,” adding he would have been charged by police if he had committed any crimes.

According to the PA court system records, last updated in May, four of the 17 traffic citations were actively open or pending, including a charge of “driving while operating privilege is suspended or revoked,” at the time Casablanca Towing & Recovery converted from a sole proprietorship to an LLC in May 2025. The City granted Casablanca Towing & Recovery LLC a license that same month, as court records show Laghzaoui concurrently had the nine active bench warrants while driving on a suspended license and with a $45,000 crash judgment from October 2024 open and unpaid.

Casablanca Towing & Recovery continues to have an active business license in Philadelphia. Neither the City nor L&I responded to requests for comment.

On September 13, 2022, a Montgomery County police officer pulled Laghzaoui over and charged him with “driving while operating privilege is suspended or revoked” and “operating a vehicle without a valid inspection.” A few weeks later, in October 2022, Laghzaoui was driving his Casablanca commercial tow truck in South Philly without a valid driver’s license or, according to a civil complaint, insurance, when he backed up on Passyunk Avenue without looking and struck a pedestrian who was in a marked crosswalk. Laghzaoui then attempted to flee the scene, but couldn’t because he was still in reverse and dragging the man he hit, now caught under his truck, who was left with a long list of injuries detailed in the complaint.

“This is something that’s happened to a lot of my constituents. It’s a really serious problem in the Northeast.” — PA Senator Joe Picozzi

Laghzaoui was a no-show at a mandatory arbitration hearing. The case went to the Board of Arbitrators, who found both Laghzaoui and Casablanca Towing & Recovery 100 percent causally negligent for the accident. Remember, at that time, Laghzaoui’s company was a sole proprietorship, leaving him on the hook for any damages he incurred in his business. In October 2024, the arbitration board awarded the crash victim $45,000 in damages.

According to the victim’s lawyer, Geoffrey Gompers, neither the company nor Laghzaoui ever paid anything. Gompers says the victim didn’t call the police at the time, believing the PPD would show only if it had been in “a real serious accident.”

Gompers says his attempts to collect his client’s $45,000 — issuing writs to freeze Laghzaoui’s bank accounts; asking the Sheriff for help — were unsuccessful. Just a few weeks after the accident, Laghzaoui was pulled over again, this time in Philadelphia County, cited for driving with a suspended license, failure to carry registration and an unusual charge called “duties of agents,” which often means false tags or a fake registration.

Picozzi to the rescue?

The legal ambiguity around predatory towing seems about to get a whole lot clearer. State legislators have taken notice of the failures at the local level to criminalize wreck-chasing.

Last year, freshman State Senator Joe Picozzi, a Republican from Northeast Philly, drafted Senate Bill 779, which, first and foremost, holds all tow companies, whether in or outside an authorized rotation, to the same standards: No more unsolicited towing, no holding a vehicle more than 24 hours, no more refusing the vehicle owner access to their own car, no more refusing to disclose fees to an owner. The bill also provides that repeat offenders would face misdemeanor charges, fines, possible imprisonment and even impoundment of their own tow trucks (yes, please!).

How does Picozzi know so much about all this? “This is something that’s happened to a lot of my constituents,” he says. “It’s a really serious problem in the Northeast — I found about it knocking on doors and a few different people brought this up to me and it took me aback.”

Picozzi has represented the Northeast since 2024; S.B. 779 is one of his first bills. “I can tell you this: Every time I speak in front of a group of people and I mention this bill, let’s say there are 30 people, I see at least two or three people just nodding their heads in a big way.”

With more than a dozen bipartisan co-sponsors, the bill passed the state senate with a vote of 49-1. (The sole no vote was former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Jan. 6-er Doug Mastriano, whose office says he may be able to respond to a question about his vote in August.) On June 29, the bill sailed through the House with a unanimous vote, 202-0. The bill was slightly amended in the House; once the two versions are reconciled and signed by the governor, it will go into effect in 60 days.

“One of the main reasons we offered this bill is to move this from a civil issue to a criminal one,” Picozzi says. “Part of the problem is that the police can only charge things that are actual criminal activity — they aren’t there to enforce civil penalties or civil issues. This is giving the police the tools they need to actually crack down on these predatory tow companies.”

Speaking of which, at the end of a long voicemail to me in which he again proclaims himself the victim of slander, Laghzaoui wonders aloud why I would work so hard to free my car from impoundment, saying, “Your insurance is happy to pay.”

Zoref, on the other hand, encourages me to dig into this issue, “because people just let their insurance handle these guys and no one fights them, so they keep doing it.”

Before my car is freed, Zoref calls Casablanca and unsuccessfully tries to persuade the manager to release the car without a fee. “You understand what we’re doing,” he recalls the manager telling him. “We’re in the same business.”

While The Citizen cannot responsibly print his full reply, Zoref tells me he begged to differ.

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