Four Los Angeles area residents were arrested after a Department of Insurance investigation found the suspects allegedly committed insurance fraud by claiming a bear had caused damage to their vehicles. Still, it was people in a bear costume. Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, those three from Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, were all arrested Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. The four were arrested on insurance fraud charges and accused of defrauding three insurance companies out of nearly $142,000. An arrest warrant has also been issued for a fifth suspect, who is currently unknown. A spokeswoman for the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office had said in an emailed statement on Thursday that the case was under review and that once a filing determination had been made, court dates would be scheduled. It was unclear whether any of the four had attorneys who could speak on their behalf Wednesday night.

Phone numbers for them were not found. The department of investigation began the investigation called “Operation Bear Claw” on January 28th, 2024, in Lake Arrowhead, when the suspects claimed a bear had gotten into their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and claimed the bear had caused significant interior damage such as what appeared to be minor groove marks on seats and the interior that were intended to pass for claw marks, and even had video evidence to prove what had happened.“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a news release. Detectives found that two other insurance companies had recently had similar claims on other luxury cars, and bears were getting into them with the same date of loss and location. Each of those claims involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350. This is a very similar story to the 1st incident. Suspects again appeared to use a bear costume to make it appear that a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles. They also provided the video footage to the other insurance companies to substantiate their claims. To further ensure it was not a bear in the video, the Department had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos, and they also opined that it was a human in a bear suit. After executing a search warrant, detectives found the bear costume in one of the suspect’s homes. The bear costume has brown fur, a head shaped like a bear’s, paws, and metal hand tools to simulate claw marks. The Department of Fish and Wildlife said  Bears breaking into homes or trash cans looking for food has become a significant problem in California from Lake Tahoe in the Sierra down to the foothill suburbs of Los Angeles, where some have seen the bears raid refrigerators and take dips in backyard pools and hot tubs.

The insurance companies were defrauded of $141,839 because of the alleged fraud committed by the suspects. The Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol assisted department detectives. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting this case.