Four Los Angeles residents stand accused of defrauding insurance companies when they claimed a bear broke into their luxury cars and damaged vehicles, but investigators determined the wild animal was a human in costume.
In what was aptly dubbed "Operation Bear Claw," the California Insurance Department said Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale; Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale; Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, are all facing charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy.
The group allegedly provided insurance companies with surveillance video taken in January in Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains that allegedly showed a bear moving inside a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes vehicles.
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The California Department of Insurance (CDI) provided photos of the damage inside the cars that appeared to be claw marks on seats and doors.
The footage from the first video shows the "bear" getting into a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and moving around the inside.
"Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume," the CDI said in a news release. "Detectives found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location."
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Those claims involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350. The suspects again appeared to use a costume to make it look as if a bear entered and damaged those vehicles, authorities said.
To make sure the bear seen in the video was not, in fact, the wild animal, the CDI brought in a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the three videos.
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The biologist concluded it was someone wearing a bear suit, the department said. The bear costume was found during a search of the suspects' home.
The insurance companies were allegedly defrauded to the tune of $141,839.
