On the upside: they didn’t don a Smokey Bear costume and start a wildfire.
At least once a week there is a crime somewhere in the world too idiotic to believe. This week’s winning entry comes from Los Angeles. Four men were arrested for insurance fraud. The plot involved a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, 2022 Mercedes E350, 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG, grainy surveillance footage, two kitchen meat shredders and a rampaging bear.
These criminal masterminds relayed the same loss report to their insurance companies for the same date and location: they parked their vehicles near Lake Arrowhead. In the wee hours — captured on camera and submitted to adjusters — a bear broke into the vehicles. The cars were presumably unlocked since the bear just used the door handles and seemed to be suffering from mild back sprain. The bear then clawed the seats and left multiple scratches.
Damages totalled $141,839 (U.S.).
But there was a snafu. As the California Department of Insurance noted in a press release this week: “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume.”
This reminds me of the famous 1967 Bigfoot sighting now believed to be an elaborate hoax. But at least that hoaxer didn’t claim Bigfoot kicked in the headlights on his Ford Mustang.
Authorities shared photos this week of the cuffed suspects and the recovered brown bear costume. The evidence also included two, six-blade meat shredders. A blade was broken off from one implement, possibly after these geniuses discovered a bear has five claws.
More research might have led the suspects to buy a black bear costume on Amazon. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, there are no brown bears in Southern California. Also, the wavy fur texture in the police snap looked less Ursidae and more Anne Hathaway if she accidentally went through a car wash with the top down on her convertible.
I still don’t understand this crime. They wanted to collect damages by actually damaging their high-end cars? I don’t get it. If you dress up as a pterodactyl and rip the shingles off your roof for the insurance money you still need a new roof.
I wonder if police found a notepad in which the suspects jotted down future schemes: Rob bank dressed as SpongeBob. Claim basement flooded after violent gophers chewed sewer pipe. Break each other’s legs with baseball bats and forge hospital report to show injuries caused by woolly mammoth. Take out life insurance policy on grandma who died in 2006.
Crime and fraud hurt everyone. Now they’re giving animals a bad name?
Listverse once compiled a tally of Top 10 costumed capers. This included a man who stole 26 gallons of milk from Walmart while dressed as a cow. There was a fellow who broke into a house in a gorilla costume. A convenience store was robbed by a unicorn. There was a domestic brawl involving a very uncaring Care Bear.
And the curious case of a young man who transformed into Laa-Laa, the yellow Teletubby, before gaining entry to a residence, locating the fridge and absconding with leftover Chinese food that was dumped into his “man purse.”
No word if alcohol was involved. But the gorilla was on meth.
What a drain on precious resources. This week’s “Operation Bear Claw” tied up officers from the Glendale Police Department and California Highway Patrol. A glance at the local crime blotter suggests these cops have more pressing matters. The investigation also tapped the expertise of a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who examined the videos and concluded, “It was clearly a human in a bear suit.”
Correction: it was a jackass in a bear suit.
Old-timey insurance fraud — staged collisions, abandoned vehicles falsely reported as stolen, fender-benders in which no fender was bent — was already driving up costs for all of us.
Is animal cosplay a new frontier for scammers? Will my premiums go up because a defrauder who can no longer afford his expensive whip drives it into a tree to collect the total writeoff and then blames the collision on an accomplice dressed like a moose? Will a fake antelope allegedly eat the tires on a Lamborghini?
All animal costumes should be secretly fitted with geo trackers. The real time data is then uploaded to local police: That horse is at a Halloween party. Makes sense. There’s a seal doing shots in the Distillery District. Probably fine. Wait a minute. Why is that tiger inside a CIBC after closing? Code 99! All units respond! Tigger may be armed and dangerous!
When criminals become animals society goes to the dogs.
