Simran Joshi
In a bizarre case of insurance fraud, four Los Angeles residents are accused of staging a bear attack on their luxury vehicles to claim damages from insurance companies.
The California Department of Insurance revealed on November 13 that Glendale residents Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, and Valley Village resident Alfiya Zuckerman allegedly used a bear costume to falsify the incidents, which reportedly took place in Lake Arrowhead on January 28, 2024.
Four in Custody Accused of Hoax Bear Costume Scam
Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, and Alfiya Zuckerman all face serious charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy.
The authorities believe the four defendants staged a bear attack on a luxury vehicle as a pretext for filing fraudulent claims. The alleged event occurred on January 28, 2024, at Lake Arrowhead where the perpetrators averred that a bear broke into their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and ravaged the inside of the car. However, to their surprise, the defendants provided accompanying video footage of the supposed bear inside the car.
Upon closer inspection of the video, the investigation found that the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the California Department of Insurance said in a release. The suspects were found to have moved from the front to the rear seats of the vehicle as they wore the costume to try to make the damage appear legitimate.
More fraud claims discovered with the same modus operandi
The suspects allegedly ran similar scams with the remaining two cars, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 by using the same date and location.
According to officials, the cases were lodged separately as separate instances of bear attacks and all the necessary video footages were submitted to different insurance companies. “Detectives found two other insurance claims with two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location,” the statement from officials went on.
The bear costume used in the scheme was discovered by police in one of the suspect’s homes through a search warrant, which solidified the evidence of intentional fraud.
Officials said that an aggregate amount of $141,839 was deprived from the insurance companies through the series of staged incidents. “The insurance companies were defrauded of $141,839, because of the alleged fraud committed by the suspects,” the department release stated.
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