These 4 LA residents allegedly used a bear costume to stage fake attacks — how ‘Operation Bear Claw’ investigators cracked the $300K insurance fraud

Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan and Alfiya Zuckerman were all in a San Bernardino court last week for a preliminary hearing for what’s become known as “Operation Bear Claw.”

The audacious scam involves security camera footage that shows someone in what appears to be a bear costume damaging the four defendants’ luxury vehicles before the four owners made claims to their insurance companies.

Here’s how the charade worked, how the fraud unfolded and what’s next for California’s brown-bear four.

Bear suit insurance scam

The four Los Angeles County residents were arrested in November 2024 in a joint investigation by the California Department of Insurance and San Bernardino County authorities.

Dubbed “Operation Bear Claw,” the investigation concluded that the four suspects had defrauded insurance companies Bristol West, Progressive and State Farm, with the three companies paying out more than $300,000 in claims on three high-end vehicles: a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350.

According to the defendants’ initial claims, the vehicles were damaged by a bear at Lake Arrowhead, a mountain resort area about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

The group even provided surveillance video to help back up their claim. But those videos didn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Experts quickly saw through the charade

Investigators consulted a biologist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. That expert, “opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit,” the Department of Insurance said in a statement.

The expert also noted that the alleged bear did not leave a trace, such as bear saliva, urine or hair.

Tim Daly, a spokesman for the department, noted the suit appeared to be “ill-fitting” and the bear’s movements awkward and unnatural. Additionally, the scratch marks and other evidence left behind in the vehicles were in no way consistent with those of a bear.

Perhaps most salient: brown bears of the type that inspired the costume haven’t been present in the state for the better part of a century, according to Daly.

Investigators also discovered multiple insurance claims submitted for different vehicles (both Mercedes-Benzes) with identical "date of loss" and "location." All claims featured suspiciously similar videos and photos.

Eventually, a bear costume and tools were recovered at the suspects' home by detectives, and the four were arrested.

Insurance fraud is no laughing matter

This is the first time a fake bear attack has been used to defraud an insurer in the state, according to the California Department of Insurance.