January 08, 2018 03:03 PM
He wanted a new, $45,000 smile, police said. But apparently he didn’t want to pay for it.
Police in Sugar Land, Texas, are looking for a man who was all set to get $45,000 in dental work, but who used a fake name to open up lines of credit to pay for it, according to Sugar Land Police.
After his Nov. 30 consultation at Smile Texas, the cosmetic dentistry office prepared molds and scheduled surgery. They were ready to give the man his new — and expensive — smile. He was supposed to get both the surgical procedure and dentures for the $45,000, according to police.
But on the day of the surgery, the man was a no show. Smile Texas tried calling the man, but the office couldn’t get a hold of him.
Eventually, though, the dentist’s office got a call from someone else: The man whose personal information had been stolen and then used by their disappearing client to take out the hefty fraudulent loan to pay for the new smile.
The identity thief never got his new smile, according to police. That didn’t stop him from racking up quite the bill, though. The office spent $9,800 on the man’s initial consultation, molds, lab fees and payments to the medical professional who was set to perform the surgery, the office told police.
Luckily for the dental office, preparing for the surgery included taking pictures of the man and his smile. Those photos are now being used by police to search for the man. Police describe him as in his 40s, 6 feet 1 inch tall and about 220 pounds.
Sugar Land police said the suspect faces charges of fraudulent use of identifying information and tampering with a government document.
At his consultation in November, the man used the fake identity to verify an approved loan through an online lending service for the procedure, police said.
Anyone with information on the suspect can call the Sugar Land Police Department at (281) 275-2540.
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