There are a lot of ways to try to claim and exaggerate damage to a vehicle, but few would go so far as to falsely claim a bear attack. Fewer still would have video footage of that bear attack. Even fewer would actually dress up as a bear to be filmed in the car to make it look like an attack. But that’s what happened in California recently.
Three residents of the Glendale area, Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, and Alfiya Zuckerman of Valley Village, were arrested on insurance fraud and conspiracy charges on November 13th. Back in January of this year a claim was filed for damage to a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, claiming that a bear had attacked the vehicle. Video footage they submitted certainly made it look like a bear, but the California Department of Insurance took a deeper look and saw it was a person in a bear suit.
Not helping the cause of the alleged fraudsters was that identical insurance claims were filed for two other vehicles, also claiming bear damage. Video footage was provided for those as well and that’s pretty much the icing on the insurance fraud cake at that point in time. Being thorough, the Department brought in an animal expert to analyze the footage and said that it was “clearly” a person in a bear costume. One search warrant later and a bear costume was found in the home of the suspects.
The total amount in damages to the insurance companies is being stated at $141,839. There’s no stated estimate on how much the bear suit cost. It almost feels like it was a step away from a Scooby-Doo episode. The only thing missing was the Scooby Gang showing up to rip the mask off at the scene of the alleged crime. Bear attacks are no joking matter either, they can be terrifying. We reported on a couple of bear incidents here at Nerdbot before. Like this case of a bear confronting a security guard in a hotel or this one about a bear attacking a woman in an outhouse.
But insurance fraud? That’s a new one. Almost unbearable. Grizzly even.
