This Wednesday, November 13, in California, four men were indicted for insurance fraud. One of them dressed up as a bear, scratching luxury cars to collect insurance money.
It is a fraud as original as it is surprising. This Wednesday, November 13, four men tried to collect insurance money by scratching luxury cars, one disguised as a bear. They then contacted the company claiming that a wild animal had attacked their vehicles.
The scam was detected after an investigation triggered by the doubts of an insurance company, which these people asked to cover the damage inflicted on a Rolls Royce Ghost, a luxury sedan sold for several hundred thousand dollars.
Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, were all charged with conspiracy and insurance fraud.
A total of 135,000 euros
According to the defendants, a bear entered the cars, scratching the seats and significantly damaging the luxury cars. According to a press release from the California Department of Insurance, they even provided surveillance video of the incident showing the animal rampaging on vehicles.
However, “upon further review of the video, the investigation determined that the bear was in fact a person disguised as an ursine,” according to the press release.
The fraudsters' demands amounted to $141,839 from their companies, or approximately 135,000 euros.
To understand how the fraudsters were doing it, the videos of the “bear” were sent to a biologist from the Department of Fauna and Flora. The latter certified “that it was clearly a human in a bear costume”.
The theory did not seem so aberrant, the Californian region being regularly subject to attacks by these animals.
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