Bear costume used in elaborate car insurance fraud scheme
Operation Bear Claw reveals suspects allegedly wore bear costume to commit insurance fraud. Image via California Department of Insurance
(LOS ANGELES) — Four individuals were arrested Wednesday for allegedly attempting to defraud their insurance companies by claiming a bear had damaged their vehicles — when in fact it was a person in a bear costume attacking the cars.
The suspects were all Los Angeles-area residents, according to a statement released Wednesday afternoon by the California Department of Insurance.
The suspects varying in age, were Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale; Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale; Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village.
The statement said that all four were charged with conspiracy and insurance fraud.
Suspects claimed on Jan. 28, 2024, that a bear entered their 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost and caused interior damage, according to the Department of Insurance. They provided video footage of the incident, stating that it had occurred during their visit to Lake Arrowhead.
Upon reviewing the footage, the Department of Insurance said that it suspected fraud. Officials said that they believed right away that the bear in question was actually a person in a bear costume.
Initiating an investigation — named Operation Bear Claw — the department learned that two other claims had been filed to different insurance companies with similar details: the same location and the same date.
Similar to the claim that originally drew the unit’s attention, the two other reports stated that a bear had attacked their cars: a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, according to the statement.
Each of the two other claims had submitted video footage as part of their evidence. And in both of those videos, the department said it believed that they were looking at the same bear costume.
However, the department said that it sought an outside opinion on the case before making a final determination. Investigators reached out to a biologist from the California Department of Wildlife, who then independently reviewed the evidence for Operation Bear Claw.
The biologist stated that “it was clearly a human in a bear suit,” according to the statement.
Authorities were able to execute a search warrant for the people involved in the alleged insurance fraud scheme.
Officials confirm that a bear costume was found in one of the suspects’ homes.
At the time of the arrests, officials reported that the insurance companies had already paid out some of the claims, totaling $141,839.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends a news conference on November 14, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Federal agents appeared Thursday morning at Gracie Mansion and seized the mayor’s phone, Alex Spiro, a lawyer for the mayor, told ABC news.
“He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court,” Spiro said, adding, “They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in.”
In a speech addressed to New Yorkers on Wednesday, Adams vowed to fight what he called the “entirely false” indictment with “every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”
“I always knew that If I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said.
Adams is the city’s first sitting mayor to be indicted.
The exact charges remain sealed as of Wednesday night, but the initial investigation expanded from campaign finance to bid-rigging and more, sources said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Adams is not expected to appear in court until next week, sources told ABC News.
Adams, a former police captain who was elected as mayor of NYC less than three years ago, has spent nearly a year under the cloud of federal investigations.
Federal authorities have been investigating the possibility of corruption at City Hall, issuing subpoenas for Adams and members of his inner circle.
Two weeks ago, Adams accepted the resignation of Edward Caban, his handpicked police commissioner, after authorities issued a subpoena for his phones. The mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, also stepped down.
This week, New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks announced plans to retire at the end of the year. Banks had also turned his phone over to federal authorities.
Banks’ younger brothers, Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, also had their phones seized. David Banks’ fiancée, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, had her phone seized as well.
Since being elected as New York City’s 110th mayor, Adams has been vocal about always following the rules and said he has known of no “misdoings” within his administration.
“If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday night.
Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller who is running for mayor next year, released a statement on X following the news of the indictment.
“First and foremost, this is a sad day for New Yorkers. Trust in public institutions — especially City Hall — is essential for our local democracy to function and for our city to flourish. The hardworking people of New York City deserve a city government and leadership they can trust. Right now, they don’t have it,” Lander said.
Lander called for Adams to step down from his position as mayor.
“The most appropriate path forward is for him to step down so that New York City can get the full focus its leadership demands,” Lander said.
If Adams were to heed the calls to resign, the New York City Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor. Lander follows Williams in the line of succession.
Earlier Wednesday, Democratic House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for Adams’ resignation, saying, “For the good of the city, he should resign.”
“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration.”
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — New York City’s deputy mayor for public safety, Phil Banks III, resigned Monday in the latest fallout from the corruption scandal engulfing the administration of Mayor Eric Adams.
“We spoke yesterday and we spoke again this morning and he stated he wants to move on to other things in his life,” Adams told NY1. “I wish my good friend well.”
Banks’ brother, David Banks, resigned as schools chancellor. First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, David Banks’ wife, is arranging her departure from the administration.
Phil Banks had his phones seized last month as part of a federal investigation into city contracts of how the police department enforced nightlife regulations. David Banks and Sheena Wright had their phones seized as well.
Phil Banks, at one point the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD, resigned from the department in 2014 amid a different corruption scandal during the prior administration. Federal prosecutors at the time named Banks an unindicted coconspirator.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment charging him with bribery and fraud. He is resisting calls for his resignation.
“New Yorkers are saying keep doing the job you’ve been doing,” Adams told NY1.
(NEW YORK) — A former OceanGate employee got emotional while remembering the people killed in the catastrophic implosion of the company’s Titan submersible during a hearing on the incident Tuesday.
“I had the privilege of knowing the explorers whose lives were lost,” Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, said during the U.S. Coast Guard hearing. “There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and their loss. It’s been a difficult year for them, for all of us.”
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were killed when the Titan imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Bay said she believes the teenager was the youngest person to ever dive on the Titan, and that there were “no true misgivings” about his age ahead of the dive.
“Stockton had spoke to the family directly on a few occasions and met with them personally,” she said. “So there was no concerns once they had been spoken with and understood. Everyone understood and was ready and excited to dive.”
Bay started working for OceanGate in December 2018. She said part of her duties included the care of the “mission specialists” — what the company called those who paid to go on dives — during expeditions.
She described a mission specialist, who paid $250,000 for the Titan dive, as someone who was “curious about deep-sea exploration” and understood that “this wasn’t a luxury trip.”
“As Stockton put it, there was no chocolate on the pillow,” she said. “They were invited to be involved and take an active role as much as possible as they wanted to.”
Towing concerns
Bay said she was present for all Titan missions in 2021 and 2022, as well as the first three in 2023 — missing the fourth and fifth, which would turn out to be the last, due to a family obligation.
OceanGate utilized the Horizon Arctic as its support ship in 2021 and 2022, though the vessel was no longer available in 2023 so they started utilizing the Polar Prince, she said. The 2023 missions started earlier in the year than previous missions due to the Polar Prince’s availability, she said.
Asked if she had any concerns about towing the Titan the 370 nautical miles to the Titanic wreck site, she said, “Certainly.”
“I think anybody would have, you know, concerns that this was going to be more challenging and more difficult in some aspects,” she said. “Stockton assured us that he was up for the challenge and the team was up for the challenge.”
She noted differences in the weather and water conditions on the 2023 missions compared to previous years.
“The seas were much higher than earlier on, than I remember being on the Horizon Arctic,” she said. “It was much colder. There’s a lot of rain.”
Asked if the Titan was ever damaged during the towing that year, she said she believed the vessel lost or damaged a fairing — a plastic cover that goes over the sub, “just like a car bumper.” She said on one or two occasions the platform also took on water and started to list.
Bay refutes prior witness testimony
A former OceanGate contractor who testified during the hearing last week, Antonella Wilby, told investigators about a conversation she had with Bay about a 2022 dive, during which passengers heard a loud bang as the Titan was ascending.
Wilby testified that when she brought up a customer’s concerns about the loud bang to Bay, Bay told her, “You have a bad attitude. You don’t have an explorer mindset. You know, we’re innovative and we’re cowboys, and a lot of people can’t handle that.”
Asked to explain those remarks on Tuesday, Bay refuted the testimony.
“I don’t believe that either of those statements is exactly what I had said,” she said.
She said Wilby’s concerns were “looked into and notated,” though she had no knowledge of what she was specifically referencing.
Bay said she did not deal with safety concerns and would refer people to the head of engineering, the director of operations and Rush.
“I did ask her if she did have concerns, to bring those up to those particular people,” Bay said.
She said she believed OceanGate staff felt comfortable raising safety concerns with Rush.
“I wasn’t witness to those types of meetings, but I was witness to people saying, ‘Oh yeah, I talked to Stockton about that today,'” she said.
OceanGate’s financial problems
At the beginning of 2023, OceanGate’s finances were “getting very tight,” and employees were asked to have their paychecks deferred once, Bay said.
“We were looking to make ends meet, and if we were able to defer our paychecks, there was an offer that Stockton had derived — I believe with an attorney or whomever — that we could delay our paychecks and be paid a small amount of interest and recaptured at a specific time,” she said.
She said she and Rush delayed their paychecks once.
Phil Brooks, the former engineering director of OceanGate, testified on Monday that he left the company in February 2023 in part due to the financial issues.
“It was clear that the company was economically very stressed,” he said.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
The two-week hearing on the incident is scheduled to run through Friday.
