Culture and Society
PUBLISHED
Fraud might be a crime, but it’s hard to deny it inspires some creativity – and in the case of an alleged insurance fraud scheme that took place in California earlier this year, “creativity” can mean dressing up in a bear costume, ruining your own car, and ending up in handcuffs.
That’s according to the California Department of Insurance (CDI), which recently announced that four people from the Glendale and Valley Village areas had been arrested on suspicion of insurance fraud and conspiracy after faking bear attacks on their luxury cars. The investigation leading to those arrests has been dubbed “Operation Bear Claw”.
Three separate claims for the apparent attacks on January 28, 2024, were made, with the suspects submitting video footage to their different insurance companies showing a “bear” damaging their cars – a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG, and a 2022 Mercedes E350.
They managed to claim a whopping $141,839 from their insurance companies – but one of the companies suspected something fishy was going on, and reported the case involving the Rolls Royce to CDI.
There, department detectives concluded that the “bear” in the video was actually a person in a bear costume. They then discovered the other two insurance claims, and the similar footage that was submitted alongside them – they’d uncovered an alleged, and quite frankly bonkers, insurance fraud scheme.
Before acting on their findings, it was important to get an expert opinion. After all, to some, the footage might look pretty realistic. To California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) biologist Kevin Howells, however, it was bear-ly believable.
“As soon as the bear came into frame, to me, it was pretty quick and fairly obvious that it was not,” Howells told the Washington Post. According to Howells, there was “visible slack in the suit” and the damage to the cars was far too neat to have been caused by an actual bear.
The alleged fraudsters probably should’ve consulted a biologist too, or y’know, done a quick Google search on bear anatomy, because some of the supposed bear scratches were a series of six lines – despite the fact that bears only have five toes. If you’re going to pretend to be a bear, at least do it well.
With their own evidence and Howell’s opinion in hand, it was enough to justify the execution of a search warrant of the suspects’ homes, where detectives subsequently uncovered the bear costume that appears to have been used in the scheme.
The four suspects involved were arrested on November 13, and now await prosecution by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
Call that Claw and Order.
