Bruce Capagli parked his car in a lot on Bercut Drive to attend the Aftershock music festival, and when he came back, it was gone. What followed, he says, was a maze of phone numbers, a shared office with an auto body shop, and a dirt field in a residential area where he eventually got his car back — damaged and $562 poorer.
Capagli is one of several drivers who told CBS Sacramento they believe J&B Towing operated illegally during Aftershock weekend, hauling vehicles away from private lots near Discovery Park and then demanding steep fees to get them back. According to the outlet's reporting, a temporary sign near the lot provided a phone number for retrieving towed vehicles, which directed Capagli to an address on Del Paso Boulevard. When he arrived, he says, it turned out to be a shared office space with an auto body shop, not a towing company storefront.
From there, Capagli says he was driven in a white Honda Civic to a dirt field in a residential area. He told the station something felt wrong the moment he saw a Lincoln Navigator towing another car across the same unmarked field — a site that, per CBS Sacramento's reporting, lacked any signage identifying it as a towing operation or connecting it to J&B Towing at all.
A Forged Authorization and a Company That Denies Involvement
Before getting his car back, Capagli says he was handed an affidavit of towing authorization that he believes was forged. The document named Allied Universal as the company that had requested the tow and listed a phone number connected to the towing operation. But Allied Universal told CBS Sacramento it did not provide weekend guarding services at that location and does not contract with towing services at all — raising the question of how its name ended up on the paperwork in the first place.
The preprinted invoices handed to drivers also omitted basic details state law requires: no vehicle identification number, no time the tow occurred, and no time the vehicle was released. Capagli said he could find no record of any authorized tow company operating at the location. Under California Vehicle Code Section 22658(l)(1)(A), a property owner, tenant, or designated agent must be physically present at the time of a tow and sign a written authorization for each vehicle specifying its make, model, VIN, license plate, reason for removal, and the exact time it was observed — a requirement, according to FindLaw.
Damage, a Stolen-Vehicle Claim, and Other Drivers Caught in the Same Trap
By the time Capagli got his car back, the damage was severe enough that he could not drive it away. His insurance company ended up treating the incident as a stolen vehicle rather than a tow gone wrong, and Capagli told the station he now believes his car was effectively stolen rather than legitimately towed.
He was not alone. Other drivers told the station they also returned from the festival to find their cars missing, were given phone numbers for retrieval, and were directed to the same Del Paso Boulevard address. Those drivers paid the identical $562 fee and received preprinted receipts bearing the J&B Towing name — receipts that, per the same account, were tied to towing operations on other days in other parts of Sacramento.
The scale of the problem is tied partly to geography. Sacramento County Regional Parks designated Bercut Drive, on the south side of Discovery Park, as the official rideshare pickup and drop-off zone for Aftershock, with the City of Sacramento Police managing traffic and parking to reduce impacts on nearby roads and businesses, according to the Sacramento County Regional Parks department. Aftershock bills itself as the West Coast's largest rock festival, drawing tens of thousands of attendees over four days to Discovery Park, and organizers have urged festivalgoers to use the official Cal Expo Park & Ride shuttle because parking near the venue is severely limited, according to Visit Sacramento. That scarcity of legitimate parking near a major transit corridor is exactly the kind of gap predatory towing operators are positioned to exploit.
What the Towing Company Says, and What the Paper Trail Shows
The owner of the towing company told the station the business was legitimate but declined to sit for an interview and did not provide a license number or any requested licensing documentation when asked. A search of the Department of Transportation registration system shows J&B Towing listed with active status, but the company is absent from other license and business searches required to legally operate in California.
That gap matters under state law. Commercial towing operators must hold an active Motor Carrier Permit issued by the California DMV and obtain a Carrier Identification Number from the California Highway Patrol before legally transporting property on state roads, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The property owner or person in lawful possession of the property who causes a tow must notify local traffic law enforcement within one hour after authorizing it, which may help explain why drivers reporting missing cars could not immediately find official impound records tied to the incident.
California law also caps what private property tow and storage operations can charge, limiting fees to rates set by the local law enforcement agency or the CHP's approved regional schedule. If a vehicle has not yet been removed from private property and is in transit, the law requires its immediate and unconditional release — a protection meant to keep confrontations between drivers and tow operators from escalating. Property owners or agents who authorize a tow without meeting the state's signage and authorization requirements can also be held civilly liable for double the towing and storage charges, while operators who knowingly skip proper written authorization face misdemeanor charges carrying fines up to $2,500 and up to three months in jail.
The Sacramento Police Department has received a police report regarding the incidents. The situation adds to a tense weekend at Discovery Park, following Hoodline's prior coverage of a sexual battery citation at Aftershock earlier in the week.
