BEARLY BELIEVABLE

‘Bear Attack’ Exposed as Insurance Fraudster in Animal Costume

Four people were arrested after they said a bear had damaged their cars—turns out the “bear” was a human in a costume.

Police arrested four people in Los Angeles after they staged phony animal attacks on a trio of luxury cars as part of a failed insurance fraud scheme that included donning a bear suit. The suspects told the California Department of Insurance that a bear had entered their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, worth nearly six figures, and destroyed its interior while it was parked at Lake Arrowhead, near San Bernardino National Forest, according to a press release. In the claim they filed, the fraudsters even included a video with surveillance camera footage that they said showed the bear wreaking havoc. But the insurance department wasn’t fooled. “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” it said in a press release. The department said it showed the footage to biologists at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to confirm that it showed a human, and not a bear. Detectives reportedly also uncovered two additional false claims the fraudsters filed with different insurance companies, also alleging a bear attack—but on two other valuable vehicles: a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350. In total, the four suspects—Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, and Alfiya Zuckerman—defrauded the insurance companies of $141,839.