Four arrested on suspicion of insurance fraud after ‘person in bear costume’ damaged cars | american news

On November 14, 2024By Littum

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of insurance fraud after claiming their cars were damaged by a bear – which turned out to be someone dressed as one of the animals, officials said.

Home surveillance footage submitted to an insurance company shows the so-called bear entering and damaging a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost while it was parked near Lake Arrowhead, northeast of Los Angeles, on Jan. 28, the California Department of of Insurance (CDI).

“Upon further examination of the video, the investigation determined that the bear was in fact a person in a bear costume,” CDI added

Claims were also filed for damage to two other cars — a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 — with two different insurance companies.

Home surveillance footage also accompanied those claims, and CDI said the suspects “again appeared to use a bear costume to make it look like a bear also came in and damaged these vehicles”.

All three insurance claims gave “the same date of loss” and the same location, CDI said.

The alleged scam cost the relevant insurers $141,839 (£111,788).

The department has released a photo of a brown furry costume found during a search of the suspects’ home. It was accompanied by metal hand tools that could be used to simulate claw marks.

The footage from the three claims suggests the incidents were filmed outside the same property on the same night but at different times.

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Photos released by CDI of the inside of the vehicles appear to show minor scratches on the seats and doors that were intended to pass for claw marks.

Bears live in the Lake Arrowhead area, but when investigators showed the videos to a California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, “they thought it was clearly a human in a bear suit,” the CDI said.

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, all of California, were arrested on insurance fraud and conspiracy charges, the department added.

CDI detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting this case.