On Wednesday, November 13, the California Department of Insurance announced the success of what it called “Operation Bear Claw,” an investigation into whether what looked like a bear damaging the inside of a Rolls Royce was, in fact, a person in a bear costume committing insurance fraud. The investigation concluded it was, and as a result four L.A. residents have been arrested and charged with fraud and conspiracy.

Sorry, I don’t mean he was committing insurance fraud while inside the car, like using the dashboard to write up the claim form or something. I meant this was a person in a bear costume committing an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Just to be clear.

According to the press release, the suspects filed an insurance claim in January asserting that a bear had gotten into their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and clawed up the interior. Assuming correctly that the insurer might want some evidence to support this, the suspects provided surveillance video footage that I haven’t figured out how to embed here yet but is worth watching.

In the video, the car is facing the surveillance camera but a strategically placed wall obscures the space to the right of the passenger side. Thus, while we see the dome light go on when a bear-like form enters the car, we are unable to see exactly how this alleged bear got the door open. Perhaps the owners mistakenly left the door slightly ajar, just enough for a passing bear to slip its claws in and swing the door open? [Perhaps, but I have since been informed that bears can in fact learn how to open car doors. I apologize to bears for underestimating them.] And presumably they left a picnic basket or something equally tasty inside, which would explain why a bear would want to get in there in the first place? Questions abound.

Once inside, the bear-like form appears to rummage around inside the vehicle, and as it does this, its arms seem to bend in a way that the arms of a normal bear would not. Or, at least, the proportions aren’t bear-like. I don’t claim to be a bear expert, but I have watched videos of bears and in my amateur opinion, these don’t look like bear arms. They look more like, I don’t know, human arms in bear sleeves?

But you don’t need to take my opinion for it. The agency “had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos and they [the biologist] also opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit.”

Wait—three alleged bear videos? Where are the other two?

Well, if you look closely at the video you’ll see it’s actually a compilation of three sets of footage, from slightly different angles and showing three different vehicles being molested by what appears to be the same bear. Because here’s the thing: once you’ve had a great idea like this and have already gone to the trouble of getting yourself a bear costume, you wouldn’t stop at just one vehicle. Upon investigation, the agency found two other insurance claims had been filed with two other insurance companies seeking bear-inflicted damages for two other vehicles: a 2022 Mercedes E350 and a 2015 Mercedes G63. And, remarkably, those losses allegedly happened on the same date and at the same location as the Rolls-Royce incident.

So what we have here is either (1) one or more bears vandalizing the interior of three different cars successively parked at the same location on the same night, each with the passenger door at least slightly ajar to enable a curious bear to open said door, or (2) insurance fraud. This is where one turns to Occam’s Razor—the rule of thumb that “recommends searching for the explanation constructed with the smallest possible set of elements,” often paraphrased as “the simplest explanation is probably the best one”—which in this case suggests that #2, insurance fraud, is the better explanation.

That (plus the biologist) was enough to get a search warrant, and if you assumed these suspects would have disposed of the bear costume after using it to commit three crimes rather than keeping it at home, you must be new here:

Note that the suspects appear to have used “meat claw” cooking utensils to do the damage rather than the bear suit’s own claws. The real clue here is that, as the video shows, the damage involved perfectly parallel scratches to the upholstery, which I don’t think is how real bear claws work. (The damage is also minimal, so whoever wore the bear suit didn’t even put much effort into this.)

According to the press release, the insurance companies “were defrauded of $141,839” due to the bogus claims. But it also says the insurance companies reported the possible fraud, so I assume this means they paid while the Department of Insurance was on the other line encouraging them to do that because it would confirm the crime and also be pretty hilarious.

Say (you’re probably thinking), I wonder if this is the first time Lowering the Bar has covered a story involving a criminal in a bear suit? Again, you must be new here. See, e.g., “Costumed Bear Harasser Wanted by Authorities, Evolution” (Aug. 17, 2015). I guess I should clarify: in that case, a guy in a bear suit ran through a group of bear-watchers (this was in Alaska) and started “waving and jumping” in an apparent attempt to get the attention of the real bears. Having somehow survived, he faced charges for animal harassment. So, potential criminal in a bear suit, which is close enough. (We might also include “Dancing Polar Bears Sue for False Arrest,” a 2010 story involving protesters concerned about global warming, but I don’t think they were actually charged.)

But the story that leapt into my brain upon seeing this was the murder/conspiracy case in which a guy planned to make his own bear suit and hire a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend while wearing it. (He would use the bear’s claws, not, like, a gun or something. That would be stupid). He never actually went through with this plan, probably realizing that Step One posed a pretty significant hurdle. See “How to Get Back at Your Ex: First, Kill a Bear” (Oct. 3, 2011). But he was a criminal, and he contemplated a bear suit, so I’m counting that one too.