SoCal Residents Hired a Guy in a Bear Suit to Trash Their Own Cars

California has no shortage of creative thinkers, and three Southern California residents recently proved that point in the most spectacular and gloriously ridiculous way anyone could possibly imagine. Hoping to collect a big insurance payout on their luxury vehicles, the trio cooked up a plan that involved hiring someone to dress in a full bear costume and stage fake animal attacks inside a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes-Benz vehicles they personally owned. They carefully filmed the whole elaborate production up in the San Bernardino Mountains and submitted the footage to their insurance companies as evidence of real bear damage, hoping to pocket nearly $142,000 in total claims between the group. Investigators gave the caper a name that is absolutely pitch perfect, officially dubbing the entire sting operation Operation Bear Claw.

The scheme began to unravel when a California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist reviewed the submitted videos and reached a conclusion that likely did not require an advanced degree to make: it was clearly a human being wearing a bear suit, not an actual wild bear lumbering through a luxury car interior. Detectives executed a search warrant and discovered the bear costume sitting right there inside the suspects' home, which may rank among the least surprising evidence finds in recent California law enforcement history. All three pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud and were sentenced to a weekend jail program followed by probation, with two of them ordered to pay back more than $50,000 in restitution to the very insurance companies they tried to fool. Real bears across the great state of California were unavailable for comment, but wildlife experts confirm the species' well-earned reputation for creative and unexpected mischief throughout the state remains completely and fully intact.

Source:https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-bear-suit-insurance-fraud-rcna340804