Trucking’s biggest insurance fraud and Jasbir Thandi’s guilty plea

Rob Carpenter

Thu, July 9, 2026 astatine 8:23 AM CDT 8 min read

On July 18, 2025, a 69-year-old antheral successful a wheelchair was rolled into Courtroom 2 of the Oakland national gathering and sworn in. Judge Jon Tigar asked Jasbir Thandi whether everything successful paragraph 2 of his plea agreement, the paragraph describing what helium did to Global Hawk Insurance Company Risk Retention Group and to Houston General Insurance Exchange, was existent and correct. Yes, Your Honor. Two counts of conspiracy to perpetrate security fraud. Guilty, sir. Guilty, sir.

He returns to that courtroom connected Aug. 28 for sentencing. I privation to walk immoderate clip earlier that walking done what helium did due to the fact that Global Hawk is not conscionable a fraud story. It is the champion objection of what happens erstwhile trucking lets a atrocious security product, a thinly capitalized market, and the radical who tally some onto the road astatine the aforesaid time.

Jasbir Thandi came to the United States from Punjab, built a Livermore, California security brokerage called Global Century Insurance Brokers astir 2005, and by 2009 had a Vermont-domiciled hazard retention radical penning car liability for motortruck drivers and tiny trucking companies crossed the country. He was Global Hawk's president, treasurer, and director. He owned 100% of Global Century, the managing wide cause that issued the policies, collected premiums, managed the slope accounts, and maintained the books. He was president and sole stockholder of American Freight Forwarders & Transportation Inc., the "founding member" whose superior contributions were expected to support the insurer solvent. Court records amusement helium was besides the sole manager of Grey's Investment Inc., a existent property institution helium incorporated successful 2016. One man, each spot astatine the table, and a 17.5% committee connected each argumentation his brokerage sold to the insurer helium controlled.

Now, betwixt 2016 and 2020, according to the Vermont liquidator's national ailment and the indictment that followed, Thandi borrowed astir $14 cardinal from Stifel Bank & Trust successful Global Hawk's sanction by falsely certifying that the committee had authorized it. The committee had authorized nothing. All but $175,000 of the indebtedness wealth went to a Global Century account, not to the insurer. When the indebtedness came due, helium paid it disconnected with $10.7 cardinal of Global Hawk's ain funds. Along the way, per the complaint, a $4.5 cardinal cashier's cheque went to a institution called Houston Management Consulting Inc., which the indictment describes arsenic Thandi-controlled. About $3.1 cardinal was wired to Grey's Investment. On Feb. 6, 2019, helium sent $1,189,542 successful security proceeds to an relationship for Advent Fund Ltd, an entity that national prosecutors accidental was Thandi-controlled and domiciled successful the British Virgin Islands. He told Stifel it was an extracurricular investment. He admitted successful his plea that helium spent much than $1.5 cardinal of the misappropriated funds connected idiosyncratic use, including a location and a luxury vehicle.