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

On July 18, 2025, a 69-year-old man in a wheelchair was rolled into Courtroom 2 of the Oakland federal building and sworn in.

Judge Jon Tigar asked Jasbir Thandi whether everything in paragraph 2 of his plea agreement, the paragraph describing what he did to Global Hawk Insurance Company Risk Retention Group and to Houston General Insurance Exchange, was true and correct. Yes, Your Honor. Two counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Guilty, sir. Guilty, sir.

He returns to that courtroom on Aug. 28 for sentencing. I want to spend some time before that walking through what he did because Global Hawk is not just a fraud story. It is the best demonstration of what happens when trucking lets a bad insurance product, a thinly capitalized market, and the people who run both onto the highway at the same time.

Jasbir Thandi came to the United States from Punjab, built a Livermore, California insurance brokerage called Global Century Insurance Brokers around 2005, and by 2009 had a Vermont-domiciled risk retention group writing auto liability for truck drivers and small trucking companies across the country. He was Global Hawk’s president, treasurer, and director.

He owned 100% of Global Century, the managing general agent that issued the policies, collected premiums, managed the bank accounts, and maintained the books. He was president and sole stockholder of American Freight Forwarders & Transportation Inc. , the “founding member” whose capital contributions were supposed to keep the insurer solvent.

Court records show he was also the sole director of Grey’s Investment Inc. , a real estate company he incorporated in 2016. One man, every seat at the table, and a 17. 5% commission on every policy his brokerage sold to the insurer he controlled.

Now, between 2016 and 2020, according to the Vermont liquidator’s federal complaint and the indictment that followed, Thandi borrowed about $14 million from Stifel Bank & Trust in Global Hawk’s name by falsely certifying that the board had authorized it. The board had authorized nothing.

All but $175,000 of the loan money went to a Global Century account, not to the insurer. When the loan came due, he paid it off with $10. 7 million of Global Hawk’s own funds. Along the way, per the complaint, a $4. 5 million cashier’s check went to a company called Houston Management Consulting Inc. , which the indictment describes as Thandi-controlled.

About $3. 1 million was wired to Grey’s Investment. On Feb. 6, 2019, he sent $1,189,542 in insurance proceeds to an account for Advent Fund Ltd, an entity that federal prosecutors say was Thandi-controlled and domiciled in the British Virgin Islands. He told Stifel it was an outside investment. He admitted in his plea that he spent more than $1.

5 million of the misappropriated funds on personal use, including a house and a luxury vehicle. Covering the hole required paperwork, and the paperwork is where this case earns its place in the fraud history hall of fame. Vermont regulators had asked Global Hawk to shore up its capital, so Thandi reported $13. 6 million in contributions in 2017.

The liquidator later compared the deposit receipts sent to Vermont against the real bank statements. Where the receipts said $3,000,000, the bank said $300. Where they said $3,600,000, the bank said $360. Where they said $1,000,000, the bank said $100. Somebody was photocopying deposit slips and adding zeros.

The 2018 annual statement, signed under oath before a California notary by Thandi and his vice president, Sandeep Sahota, told Vermont the company held $44. 9 million in cash at Stifel. The real combined balance was about $12. 1 million. By the 2019 statement, the fiction had come fully loose from the ground: it claimed $17.

9 million at Stifel, in accounts that had been closed for nearly a year. A monthly statement from the company’s investment adviser kept reporting balances, month after month, for accounts that no longer existed. Then there are the ghost policies. Vermont had capped Global Hawk at $15. 5 million in new business for 2019.

So more than 500 policies simply never made it into the company’s records. The liquidator found them by comparing FMCSA’s insurance filing database against the broker’s own files: 512 policies, prefixes such as CALQ and NVLQ, the first effective in June 2019. More than half of all the new policies issued in Global Hawk’s final 11 months were off the books.

Real trucks, real filings with the FMCSA, real certificates in the hands of shippers and brokers, and no insurer behind them who knew they existed. The end came fast. In late April 2020, the Vermont captive manager, who also sat on the board, asked Thandi for the actual Stifel statements. He ignored the request.

On May 1, the manager called Stifel and was told the authorized signatory had denied it. On May 6, he resigned from the board. Vermont seized the company on May 20, and a state court ordered liquidation on June 8, 2020. Global Hawk’s last annual statement had claime