In January, a safety digital camera captured unnerving footage: what seemed to be a bear had pressured its means right into a Rolls Royce parked outdoors a house within the Southern California resort neighborhood of Lake Arrowhead, gouged the seats and thrashed the inside.
However a sharp-eyed auto insurer felt one thing was off concerning the furry interloper. After an investigation, the California Division of Insurance coverage concluded that the harm wasn’t the work of a bear in any respect, however an try at insurance coverage fraud.
“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the Division of Insurance coverage stated in a press release Wednesday.
Police discovered a bear costume on the suspects’ residence, in response to the California Division of Insurance coverage. California Division of Insurance coverage
4 Los Angeles-area locals have been arrested and charged with insurance coverage fraud and conspiracy after the division’s investigation discovered three allegedly bogus insurance coverage claims for staged bear assaults on three automobiles, together with the 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost.
The company claims that Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32 and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, defrauded insurance coverage firms of practically $142,000 with the scheme.
These 4 attracted the eye of insurance coverage detectives with a collection of suspicious insurance coverage claims, in response to the division. They dubbed the investigation Operation Bear Claw.
One declare said {that a} bear entered the Rolls Royce and broken the inside in January close to Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino County. As proof, they submitted to an insurance coverage firm a black-and-white surveillance video of the purported bear shifting about contained in the automotive. It’s not unusual within the Mountain West for hungry bears to mutilate parked automobiles.
The division’s detectives then discovered practically similar claims for 2 totally different automobiles to different insurance coverage firms, every filed with comparable movies as proof of injury.
Suspecting that the bear in query was the truth is not a bear in any respect, detectives requested a California Division of Fish and Wildlife biologist to look at the movies and weigh in.
The decision?
“They also opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit,” the division stated.
Detectives, aided by the Glendale Police Division and the California Freeway Patrol, then executed a search warrant on the suspects’ residence. Among the many objects seized: a bear costume.
