Man dresses up as bear, breaks into friend's Rolls-Royce to trick insurance company for money
Four friends in California devised a scheme to commit insurance fraud by using a bear costume to damage luxury cars.
Desperate to get their hands on cash, a group of friends in California bought a bear costume and hatched a plan to trick their insurance companies. One of the friends dressed up as a bear and damaged the others' luxury cars so they could allegedly cash in on hefty insurance money.
Four men were arrested in Los Angeles and charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy after they falsely claimed that their vehicles were damaged by a bear. The insurance investigators soon discovered that the destruction was actually caused by a man wearing a bear costume.
In January, a bear allegedly broke into a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost. The owner of the car submitted a video of CCTV footage showing the alleged attack to the insurance company in an attempt to prove that the damage was caused by the bear, but the Insurance Department didn’t believe the story.
The CCTV video showed the bear entering the window of the Rolls-Royce but the animal’s fur appeared unnaturally shiny and smooth like it a Halloween costume.
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Take a look at the video here:
Photographs from inside the luxury car show straight and parallel marks damaging the seats and doors, which did not seem like they could be made by a bear’s claws.
A biologist from the California Wildlife Department reviewed the video and suggested it was a person in a costume. “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a costume,” the California Department of Insurance and Fraud told the New York Post.
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The insurance companies said that they were defrauded of $141,839, because of the alleged fraud committed by the suspects Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan and Alfiya Zuckerman. They were all charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.
The bear costume was found in one of the men's home. A photograph, that went viral on social media, showed the bear outfit made up of a furry onesie, attachable paws and claw-like blades that were used to leave the fake bear claw marks.