A video that was submitted as part of an insurance claim in January appeared to capture a disturbing scene: a brown bear ransacking a Rolls-Royce that was parked in a Southern California driveway.
Similar videos involving other luxury cars were submitted to two additional insurers, and the three companies collectively paid out more than $US140,000 ($217,000).
A photo provided by the California Department of Insurance shows a bear costume found in the home of a suspect in an insurance fraud case. Credit: The New York Times
But something about the footage seemed off, and one of the companies reported the video and images of claw marks on the upholstery to the California Department of Insurance. On Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), after concluding an investigation it called Operation Bear Claw, the department said it had determined that the bear was not, in fact, a bear.
“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a news release. The scratch marks inside the vehicles, it said, were made with a claw-like kitchen accessory usually used to shred meat.
The California Department of Insurance said four Los Angeles County residents had been arrested. Ruben Tamrazian, 26; Ararat Chirkinian, 39; and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, California; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Los Angeles, each face charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy, the department said.
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A spokesperson for the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office said in an emailed statement on Thursday that the case was under review and that once a filing determination had been made, court dates would be scheduled. It was not immediately clear if the defendants had hired lawyers.
Three of those arrested were still in custody, authorities said. Zuckerman had been released on a $US50,000 bond, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office.
The California Department of Insurance said in its news release that the first insurance company “suspected fraud” after it received a claim related to a bear rifling through a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost on January 28 in Lake Arrowhead, California, a resort area about 140 kilometres north-east of Los Angeles.