Person in bear costume damaged luxury cars, insurers say

Four Los Angeles residents are accused insurance company fraud when they claimed a bear had broken into their luxury cars and damaged vehicles, but investigators determined the wild animal was a human in costume.

In what was aptly dubbed “Operation Bear Claw,” the California Insurance Department said Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale; Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale; Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, are all charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

The group allegedly provided insurance companies with surveillance video taken in January at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains, which allegedly showed a bear moving around in a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes vehicles.

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The California Department of Insurance (CDI) provided photos of the damage to the inside of the cars, which appeared to show claw marks on seats and doors.

The footage from the first video shows the “bear” getting into a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and moving around inside.

“Upon further examination of the video, the research determined that the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the CDI said in a news release. “Detectives located two additional insurance claims from two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location.”

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These claims involved two different vehicles, a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG from 2015 and a 2022 Mercedes E350. The suspects again appeared to use a costume to make it appear as if a bear entered and damaged the vehicles, authorities said.

To ensure that the bear seen in the video was not in fact the wild animal, CDI brought in a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the three videos.

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The biologist concluded it was someone wearing a bear suit, the department said. The bear costume was found during a search of the suspects’ home.

The insurance companies were allegedly defrauded to the tune of $141,839.