Scammers pose as bear, attack car, and get arrested

The video seems realistic.

A brown bear enters an expensive car parked outside a cabin in Lake Arrowhead and begins to claw its way through the backseat. Here. See for yourself.

It almost looks real. Until the “bear” attempts to climb into the back seat of the 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost.

The California Department of Insurance announced Wednesday the arrests of four people suspected of insurance fraud by claiming a bear had caused damage to their vehicles, but it was actually a person in a bear costume. All have been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

State biologists reviewed the video to determine it wasn’t a California brown bear. I’m not sure detectives needed to go that far.

The funny thing is, this wasn’t the first time a “bear” had attacked one of the suspects’ cars.

According to a press release, detectives found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location. Each of those claims involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350.

In those cases, “the suspects again appeared to use a bear costume to make it appear that a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles. They provided the video footage to the other insurance companies as well to substantiate their claims.”

Here’s the costume.