CA Department of Insurance Remember back in 2024 when we covered the nearly foolproof master plan of some insurance fraudsters to dress up in a fake bear suit and record themselves using meat-shredding "claws" to rough up three luxury cars in hopes of receiving a car insurance payout for the damage? Well those fraudsters just got their day in court, and it didn't end beary well for the three Southern California residents; they each got 180 days in jail and are ordered to pay more than $50,000 in restitution. The ruthless criminals who committed this heinous crime are Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, California, Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Ararat Chirkinian, 39, all residents of Glendale, California. Together, these wily rapscallions collected $141,839 in insurance payouts from the poor, unsuspecting car insurance companies. They mauled the interiors of a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG, and a 2022 Mercedes-Benz E350. Zuckerman, Tamrazian, Muradkhanyan all got sentenced to 180 days in a weekend jail program and two years of supervised probation, but Zuckerman must pay $55,360 in restitution, while Tamrazian was ordered to pay $52,268. Muradkhanyan's restitution is yet to be determined. Chirkinian is scheduled to return to court in September for a preliminary hearing. The California Department of Insurance Investigation dubbed it Operation Bear Claw Despite the video footage of the supposed bear attack showing pretty clearly that the so-called bear was just a person in a bear suit, a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife was still asked to review the footage. They did, and concluded that the animal shown was "clearly a human in a bear suit." Detectives from the California Department of Insurance were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol, and the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office is prosecuting the case. I, for one, am proud to see my tax dollars and our great American Justice System once again keeping violent criminals like these four off our streets, and ensuring that innocent, law abiding car insurance companies don't end up getting taken advantage of by crooks. This is exactly the kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism that I got my journalism degree to cover. If you're planning to do insurance fraud, maybe don't do it quite this badly.
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