How high do you have to be to hatch a scheme like this?
Four people in L.A. are facing insurance fraud charges after claiming a bear got into their 2010 Rolls-Royce and destroyed it. (We’re guessing they got the idea from YouTube. There are tons of videos of bears getting into cars.)
They claimed it happened in January during a trip to Lake Arrowhead. (About 75 miles east of L.A.) And they had security footage to back it up, but that footage is what did them in.
Even though it’s from a distance, you can tell it’s obviously somebody in a bear COSTUME.
Officials launched an investigation called “Operation Bear Claw.” They looped in a biologist at the California Department of Wildlife, who watched the video and told them it was “clearly a human in a bear suit.” Check out the video below…
The scratch marks in the car also looked weird and too evenly spaced. It turned out they’d used metal claws meant for shredding meat. Officials found the bear suit and the claws in one of the suspects’ homes. (Here’s a photo.)
As dumb as the plan was, it turned out they’d actually pulled it off TWICE before with two other cars, both Mercedes. Together, the fraudulent claims netted them just over $140,000.
Two of the suspects are 39, one is 32, and the other is 26. They’re all facing charges for conspiracy and insurance fraud.
