“Operation Bear Claw” was certainly a new kind of insurance fraud case.
The target: one Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes-Benz.
Weapons: A bear suit and flesh claws.
A Southern California woman and two men who pleaded no contest this week to a scheme to defraud insurance companies by wearing bear costumes and staging fake attacks on luxury vehicles have been sentenced to prison.
This scam was of very short duration. Insurance companies suffered losses totaling $141,839. But officials said it represented a highly unusual take on car insurance fraud that was only uncovered when an investigator from one of the insurance companies carefully looked at surveillance video of one of the planned attacks.
“This is definitely out of the ordinary,” Capt. Eric Hood, a 20-year veteran of the California Department of Insurance who led the investigation, said in an interview with The Times on Friday. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything to that extent in the past where they’ve got a bear suit. It’s definitely unique.”
Experts say auto insurance fraud is a costly but common problem across the country, causing consumers to pay higher premiums. Fraud often takes the form of accidents, arson, and people lying to get car insurance. But this matter was different.
The bear suit, including claws, is part of the evidence used to convict three men of “bear” attacks on luxury cars in exchange for an insurance payout.
(California Department of Insurance)
“What seemed unbelievable turned out to be exactly that — and now those responsible are being held accountable,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.
The state’s investigation into the bizarre scheme began in 2024 when the group claimed a bear entered their 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, worth $245,000 new, in Lake Arrowhead and scratched the inside of the car. In an effort to strengthen their story, they even submitted a video of the incident — but it would ultimately be their undoing, officials said.
Video The attack, released by the Department of Insurance, shows what appears, at least to the casual observer, to be a man in a grizzly bear costume entering a car and walking around and clawing at the inside. The video includes photos of superficial scratches on the vehicle’s expensive leather seats and door panels.
But when an insurance company claims investigator reviewed the video footage, they noticed something strange. Besides the fact that there hasn’t been a true brown bear, or a California grizzly, in the Golden State since the 1920s, the way the ferocious — if slightly skinny — animal was walking made it seem less dirty and more humane.
Detectives enlisted the help of biologists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the video and they agreed that it was clearly a human in a bear costume.
Through their investigation, officers discovered that the individuals had made two additional insurance claims – one for a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and another for a 2022 Mercedes E350 – with different companies. All three claims, which authorities allege were fraudulent, had the same date and place of loss. And all contain very similar videos.
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Officials said two companies fell into the trap.
Bristol West paid the group $52,268 and paid an additional $34,000 to repay a loan on a car. Progressive paid $55,920 for another claim.
A third claim filed with State Farm was dismissed after the company reviewed the footage, Hood said.
“This kind of thing wouldn’t normally be paid for,” Hood said. “Sometimes, insurance companies are trying to get it paid out quickly and may not have their facts organized and may not have taken it all into account.”
In November 2024, detectives executed a search and arrest warrant at the defendants’ home and discovered head-to-toe bear costumes and pieces of meat they said were used in the scheme.
On the surface, the idea that two companies even believe these incidents involved actual bears may seem far-fetched, but experts say there are reasons why such a claim might fail.
Harry Kazakian, a licensed private investigator and independent claims adjuster, said insurance companies are wary of bad faith lawsuits that may arise when they deny claims, so they will often pay them to avoid legal problems. And scammers know exactly what damage to do to get paid, he said.
In this case, if there is damage to the car’s interior, insurance companies will not just pay to repair the upholstery, they will pay to replace the entire seat, which is expensive. So people looking to make a quick buck will claim damage to the seat, Kazakian said, and instead of the insurance company paying the body shop to repair it, the insured will “cash out” the claim and keep the money.
“The insurance company doesn’t have to inspect the vehicle to make sure it’s been repaired. So they’ll just take out the cash and move on,” he said.
Still, it was the strangest case he had ever heard of in his career.
“If you look carefully, there’s a bear that can open a vehicle door and get in like a human can open a door,” he said. “And, of course, the odd bear paw print on the vehicle, I think, is what caught the company’s attention.”
Alfia Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village and Rouben Tamarjian, 26, Vahe Muradkhanian, 32, and Ararat Chirkinian, 39, all of Glendale, were charged with multiple felonies, including aggravated white-collar crime, submitting a false insurance claim and destruction of insured property. He initially pleaded not guilty to all counts, according to San Bernardino Superior Court records.
This month, Zuckerman, Tamarzian and Muradkhanian pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud in a plea deal with prosecutors and were sentenced to 180 days in jail and supervised probation, according to court records.
All three are allowed to serve their time through a weekend jail program. Zuckerman was ordered to pay $55,360 in restitution and Tamarzian must pay $52,268. According to the California Department of Insurance, a compensation amount for Muradkhanyan has not been determined.
Chirkinian is scheduled to return to court in September for a preliminary hearing. An attorney representing Chirkinian in the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brian Darr, senior forensic engineer at Quality Forensics, who has been investigating insurance claims for more than 16 years, said it’s often not difficult to determine whether a claim is fraudulent.
Insurance companies conduct consistency assessments that can help root out fraud by determining whether the loss presented is consistent with what you would typically expect to happen.
“You’ll look for something that looks like a bear’s paw print,” he said. “If you see the tool marks, you’ll know it wasn’t actually a bear.”
