Four Los Angeles residents were arrested after staging a fake bear attack to collect insurance payments.

The group claimed their vehicle was damaged by a bear, but an investigation by the California Department of Insurance revealed that the “bear” was actually a person dressed in a bear costume.

CDI said this all started after an insurance company suspected fraud regarding a Jan. 28 claim.

The suspects who made the claim stated that a bear damaged the interior of their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost. video evidence bear allegedly in the vehicle.

An investigation into this claim revealed that the video depicted a costumed person rather than an actual bear.

Upon further investigation, detectives discovered two additional insurance claims for the suspects with the same date of loss and covering two different insurance companies in the same location, CDI said. Each of these claims involved two different vehicles: the 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and the 2022 Mercedes E350.

In response to these allegations, the suspects staged an animal damaging their vehicle, using an outfit that looked like a bear costume. Video footage regarding these allegations was also presented.

To make sure there wasn’t actually 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 stated that it was clearly a human in a bear costume,” CDI said.

The search warrant also led to the discovery of a bear costume at the suspects’ home.

As a result, insurance companies were defrauded by the suspects out of a total of $141,839, CDI said.

The suspects include Ruben Tamrazian (26), Ararat Chirkinian (39), Vahe Muradkhanyan (32) and Alfiya Zuckerman (39). They are all charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case.

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