A video that was submitted as part of an insurance claim in January appeared to capture a disturbing scene: a brown bear ransacking a Rolls-Royce that was parked in a Southern California driveway. Similar videos involving other luxury cars were submitted to two additional insurers, and the three companies collectively paid out more than $140,000. But something about the footage seemed off.
“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a news release. The scratch marks inside the vehicles, it said, were made with a claw-like kitchen accessory usually used to shred meat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/us/fake-bear-insurance-fraud-charges.html?smid=url-share