According to officials, people in bear suits attack cars in order to file insurance claims.

Photo Credit ( Freepik )

In January, a video that was included in an insurance claim seemed to show a gruesome scene: a brown bear rifling through a Rolls-Royce parked in a driveway in Southern California.

Two other insurers received similar recordings of other luxury vehicles, and the three businesses paid out over $140,000 in total.

However, one of the corporations filed the footage and pictures of claw scratches on the upholstery with the California Department of Insurance because it seemed strange. Following the completion of an investigation known as Operation Bear Claw, the department announced on Wednesday that it had concluded the bear was not, in fact, a bear.

According to a news statement from the department, “the investigation concluded the bear was actually a person in a bear costume after further examination of the video.” It claimed that a claw-like kitchen tool often used to shred meat was utilized to create the scratch marks inside the cars.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Insurance said that four people from Los Angeles County had been taken into custody. Charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy have been brought against Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Los Angeles; Ruben Tamrazian, 26; Ararat Chirkinian, 39; and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, California, the department said.

In an emailed statement on Thursday, a representative for the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office stated that the matter was being reviewed and that court dates would be set if a filing determination was reached. Whether the accused had retained legal counsel was not immediately apparent.

According to officials, three of the people who were arrested were still being held on Thursday. According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office, Zuckerman was freed on a $50,000 bond.

The first insurance company “suspected fraud” after receiving a claim about a bear tearing through a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost on January 28 near Lake Arrowhead, California, a resort region roughly 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, according to a news release from the California Department of Insurance.

Subsequently, investigators discovered that comparable claims for interior damage to two additional vehicles, both Mercedes-Benzes, had been filed to the other insurance providers “with the same date of loss and at the same location,” according to the department. The images and videos in the claims were very identical.

This Monday, the department published a collection of virtually identical videos that appear to show a bear unlocking a car door and then crawling inside.

The bear can be seen swatting at the dashboard in the films, which seem to have been captured by a security camera from an eave over a driveway. It can be seen slithering into the back seat in two of the videos.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s biologist, whom investigators consulted, reportedly verified their suspicion that they were dealing with “clearly a human in a bear suit” rather than a very agile bear.

According to department spokeswoman Tim Daly, the movements of the purported bear were not convincing, and the costume seemed “ill fitting.” The scratch marks and other evidence found in the vehicles were also not bear-related. He remarked, “A bear leaves behind a big mess.”

He added that it has been around a century since brown bears were last spotted in California. According to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the black bear—which does come in dark brown and tan hues—is the only wild bear species still found in the state.

According to the agency, officers found a bear costume in one suspect’s house after carrying out a search request. They also discovered flesh claws, which are handles that shred meat.

According to a California Department of Insurance representative, investigators have discovered numerous “far-fetched schemes” throughout the years, but this is the first instance of a false-bear assault being used to defraud an insurer.

Bears are frequently held accountable by humans for their misdeeds.

Authorities say someone tried to blame bears for murders in Montana and Tennessee only this fall.