A group of Los Angeles County residents were arrested after allegedly staging bear attacks while wearing a costume to collect payments from their car insurance companies, investigators say.
The operation, which was dubbed “Bear Claw,” found that three of the four individuals filed similar insurance claims after a suspected bear destroyed the interior of their cars in the San Bernardino County mountain community of Lake Arrowhead, according to with a statement from the California Department of Insurance.
The investigation began after one of the insurers suspected fraud, revealing that multiple claims had been filed for the same location on January 28, 2024. Claimants provided images to their insurers of an alleged bear damaging the interior of their vehicles.
Watch the video:
These videos, all from the same location outside a residence in the area, purported to show the animal getting into cars and crawling around. But “after further examination of the video, the investigation determined that the bear was, in fact, a person in a costume,” the CDI statement said.
To ensure their beliefs were not unfounded, investigators sought help from a California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, who analyzed all three videos of the fake attacks and also opined that it was “clearly a human in a bear costume.” ”.
Photos provided by insurance investigators showed superficial scratch marks on the seats and door panels of the cars.
Investigators noted that the claims, which resulted in insurance companies being defrauded of more than $141,000, were made for a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350.
The four suspects, identified as Glendale residents Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Valley Village woman Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, were all arrested with the help of Glendale police and the Glendale Highway Patrol. California, the statement said.
They were each charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.
