A Bear Trashed Their Rolls Royce. It Turned Out To Be A Person In A Bear Costume.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Earlier this year, a group of Angelenos submitted an insurance claim that included what they said was video evidence of a bear climbing inside their Rolls Royce and trashing the car. But after state officials scrutinized the video they discovered the furry creature in the video was no wild animal — it was actually a person dressed up in a bear costume.

Four people were arrested Wednesday on charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy in connection with the fake-bear scheme, which state insurance officials said involved false claims for the 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350. Insurance companies were defrauded of $141,839 as part of the crimes, the California Department of Insurance said in a release.

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village were charged following the investigation.

State insurance investigators launched an investigation after an insurance company raised red flags regarding the suspect's January claim on the Rolls Royce. They supplied security camera video footage that they claimed showed a bear in Lake Arrowhead entering the car and romping around its interior, causing damage, officials said.

"Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume," the insurance department said.

Investigators found two additional insurance claims made by the suspects with two different insurance companies that indicated the same date of loss in Lake Arrowhead. In those cases, the suspects provided similar video footage showing the "bear" entering the two Mercedes vehicles, the department said.

The evidence submitted by the suspects also included photos of the cars' interiors and seats badly scratched in patterns similar to that of a bear's claws.

View a compilation of the three videos here.

While insurance investigators believed the bear was actually a human in a bear costume, they enlisted the expertise of a biologist from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The scientist reviewed the three videos and "opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit," the department said.

Detectives executed a search warrant in the suspects' home and found a bear costume, the department said.

Tamrazian was being held in lieu of $85,000 bail, while bail was set at $30,000 for Chirkinian and Muradkhanyan, according to jail records. No jail records were immediately available for Zuckerman.