Look, I get it: car insurance is expensive, and there are plenty of reasons why you’d want to try and get that money back from the insurance agency. However, getting someone to dress up as a bear and damage your car just isn’t it. That’s exactly what four suspects in the Los Angeles area did in an insurance fraud scam before finally being apprehended on Wednesday night.
The four suspects, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, Ruben Tamarazian, and Alfiya Zuckerman, each from different Los Angeles neighborhoods, had claimed that a bear opened the door to and destroyed the interior of a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost. Now, if you know anything about Rolls-Royce cars, you know that they cost a pretty penny. Considering that, it makes sense that the Department of Insurance would look at the provided footage, especially if three separate claims were filed on the same date at the same time for different cars.
Fortunately, each of these claims had a video provided. It doesn’t take a genius to look at the footage and immediately see that it’s a person inside that bear costume. You can see how the arms move more like human arms than animal arms. Investigators were also able to tell this and execute a search warrant for it. Of course, the bear costume was found inside the homes of one of the suspects alongside a claw tool that was used to break into the car’s seats.
Unfortunately, by the time authorities finally caught up to the suspects insurance companies had already paid out over $100,000. As a result of everyone’s actions, San Bernardino County Disctrict Attorney’s Office is prosecuting. In my opinion, this was way too large an insurance fraud scheme. There is absolutely no way that they didn’t know they would eventually get caught. Well, actually, considering what they decided to do, maybe they did think they wouldn’t get caught.
