Armenian in a bear costume: Three fraudsters sentenced for insurance scam in California - PHOTO
In California, three individuals have been sentenced to prison for insurance fraud involving a bear costume, reports The Guardian.
“When it comes to the California Department of Insurance, it’s best not to ‘poke the bear.’ This lesson was recently learned by three Los Angeles residents sentenced to prison terms for a fraudulent insurance payout scheme in which they staged attacks on expensive cars by dressing a person in a bear costume—and then passing them off as a real animal,” the publication notes.
The incident occurred in November 2024.
- 26-year-old Ruben Tamrazian,
- 39-year-old Ararat Chirkinian,
- 32-year-old Vahe Muradhanyan,
- 39-year-old Alfiya Tsukerman -
filed three claims with an insurance company, demanding compensation for an alleged incident on January 28, 2024, in Lake Arrowhead, where a bear supposedly broke into their 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost and also caused damage to two Mercedes vehicles—a 2015 G63 AMG and a 2022 E350. They also provided video evidence of the supposed attack inside a car parked near Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains. The footage showed a bear entering the vehicle and rummaging inside. Investigators later discovered two additional claims stating that the same individual had performed similar actions in two other Mercedes cars.
The total amount the fraudsters hoped to receive from the insurance companies was $141,800.
During the investigation, it was revealed that the “bear” in the video was actually a person in a wild animal costume. The scam was uncovered when biologists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, after reviewing the footage of the “predator,” concluded that it depicted a human in a bear costume.
The prosecution agreed with the experts’ findings. Ultimately, the court sentenced all three fraudsters to 180 days in custody, with the option to serve the time on weekends, and ordered them to pay restitution. Tsukerman and Tamrazian are required to pay over $52,000 in restitution. The restitution amount for Muradhanyan was not determined at the time of publication.
The fourth suspect, 39-year-old Ararat Chirkinian, is set to appear in court in September.
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara stated that this was an outrageous scheme: “What might have seemed unbelievable turned out to be just that—and now the guilty parties have been held accountable. My department’s investigators established the facts, exposed this scam, and helped bring the accused to justice. Insurance fraud is a serious crime that increases costs for consumers, and no scheme is too absurd for us to investigate.”
Source: The Guardian
