The four men were charged with insurance fraud for staging fake bear attacks with the bear costume after a joint investigation by the California Department of Insurance and San Bernardino County authorities called “Operation Bear Claw.”
The men submitted grainy videos of a bear tearing through their cars. However, insurance investigators were a bit suspicious in watching the movements of the bear. They brought in a biologist who said that that was no bear but a man in a bear suit. The biologist noted that the claw marks actually did not fit the pattern of an actual bear claw.
When the detectives searched the homes, they found the bear outfit. The men had allegedly defrauded insurance companies of $141,839.
The men missed the meaning in the sage words of Baloo the Bear on the bear necessities. They took him literally when he said:
Well, next time bewareDon’t pick the prickly pear by the pawWhen you pick a pearTry to use the claw
First, it has to be your claw and second the point is to set aside those obsessions with possessions, man:
And don’t spend your time lookin’ aroundFor something you want that can’t be foundWhen you find out you can live without itAnd go along not thinkin’ about itI’ll tell you something trueThe bare necessities of life will come to you
