There is a long history of wild animals taking out their anger on motor vehicles. In Japan in 2024, a bear attacked a truck in defense of her offspring. As Car and Driver has reported, insurers in Australia frequently receive claims that involve kangaroo attacks on motor vehicles. In other words, the idea of a bear attacking several luxury cars in California is not too far removed from reality. Unfortunately for a group of would-be scammers, however, their disguise was not quite convincing enough.
What drew the attention of law enforcement? A combination of factors, beginning with insurance claims to the effect that a wild bear had damaged a series of luxury cars, beginning with a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost. Damage to a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 followed, along with video footage of what appeared to be a bear inside the car.
Something seemed off about the bear to the insurace investigators, and when an expert from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife was called in, they confirmed it: that was no bear. Instead, it was a person wearing a bear costume, going to town on a few very nice vehicles. According to the California Department of Insurance, the total amount that the insurance companies paid in the scam was $141,839.
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Both sellers and buyers have been affectedThree of the four defendants in this truly strange insurance fraud case recently pled no contest; the fourth is awaiting a hearing in September of this year. Also worth noting: when the California Department of Insurance investigation began looking into the case, they dubbed it “Operation Bear Claw.” Given that this decade already gave us the film Cocaine Bear, it seems very likely that we’re going to get some sort of fictionalized version of this scam on a screen — large or small — before too long.
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