Former Beijing-based US Doctor Arrested in Dubai

Michael Wester | May 20, 2010 6:25 pm | 13 comments | 10004 reads

An American doctor who practiced plastic surgery in Beijing for several years between 2004 and 2007 is under arrest in Dubai for impersonating a celebrity surgeon and allegedly disfiguring several of his patients.

Steven Gabriel Moos practiced at the Confidant Medical Clinic in Wangfujing under the name Michael Gabriel between 2004 and 2007. The thirty-something lived at the Jianguomen Diplomatic Compound with his hairdresser wife and their four young children up until abruptly leaving town in late 2007 as word of his past began to get around Beijing.

Moos was arrested in Dubai when someone reported his fake credentials. An examination of his Dubai apartment revealed that he had been practicing surgery on his kitchen table and liposuctioned fat were found in kitchen pots and water bottles.

Ironically, Moos’ past was clouded long before he came to Beijing. He first practiced medicine in Oregon and prior to his arrival he lived in a million-dollar mansion in the Portand, Oregon suburbs previously owned by NBA star Jermaine O’Neal.

A practitioner of “lifestyle medicine” – plastic surgery, hair loss remedies, sexual aides and the like – Moos was not well liked in his fancy neighborhood. Nearby residents complained to the police about all-night parties and suspicious visits at the residence, home to Moos, his former Cambodian refugee wife and their four children, all under 7.

In 2004 he abruptly disappeared, abandoning the million-dollar home in the wake of increasing suspicion about his medical practices that began with a drug raid on his home and office.

After his receptionist was caught with cocaine, she reported that Moos was the source of her drugs. A search of the Moos home turned up small quantities of ketamine, ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine and marijuana, which resulted in probation. The state of Oregon was also on his tail for selling prescriptions over the internet and pushing an aphrodisiac ointment called Viaglide that claimed to be made with the “same active ingredient as Viagra.”

Then, he abruptly disappeared, and soon washed up on the shores of Beijing where he continued practicing medicine in a Wangfujing clinic under the name Dr Michael Gabriel. Posts on the Beijing Café internet bulletin board from 2006 suggest that around that time people began to connect Dr Gabriel to his former identity, and by 2007 was gone.

Links and Sources
Plastic surgeon imposter Steven Moos jailed after disfiguring women
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7112319.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

Victims of ‘fake plastic surgeon’ relive ordeal
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100409/NATIONAL/704089838/1138/travel

Hunting Dr Feelgood: Why is everyone out to get Steven Moos?
http://wweek.com/editorial/3005/4593/

Paging Dr Moos: Doctor disappears, abandoning US 1.1 million home
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3017/4844/

Brief discussion from the Beijinger forum of plastic surgery at Confidant while Steven Moos was there
http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2006/04/26/Botox

Warnings on Beijing Café newsgroup from as early as 2006 (members only)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Beijingcafe/msearch?query=moos&submit=Search

Comment: Trust Me, I’m a Doctor (from a Dubai expat)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/expat/annabelkantaria/10138542/trust-me-im-a-doctor/

Comment: Running into U.S. fugitives abroad (from former McClatchy Newspapers Beijing bureau chief)
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/china/2007/07/running-into-us.html

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admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Wed, 05/31/2017 - 03:46

Look who's back in the news:

Former fugitive doctor gets near half-century in prison for years of raping teen in Beaverton

http://www.oregonlive.com/beaverton/index.ssf/2017/03/former_fugitive_doctor_gets_ne.html

 

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 16:44

the latest on Mr Moos

Former Tigard doctor gets probation in Washington County drug case

Quote:
Friday, March 18, 2011

Rebecca Woolington, The Oregonian

A former Tigard doctor who was said to be impersonating a surgeon last year in Dubai has been sentenced to probation in Washington County Circuit Court in a drug case from 2003.

In a stipulated facts trial, Steven Gabriel Moos, 41, was convicted Tuesday of one count of possession of methamphetamine and one count of endangering the welfare of a minor, Deputy District Attorney Jason Weiner said. The stipulated facts trial, Weiner said, is similar to a guilty plea in that Moos agreed to evidence against him.

Because of his agreeing to a stipulated facts trial, Moos had his remaining charges of possession of cocaine, possession of ketamine and three counts of endangering the welfare of a minor dismissed, Weiner said. The four counts of endangering the welfare of a minor that Moos was charged with stemmed from Moos' four minor children living in a place with illegal drug activity, Weiner said.

Moos was sentenced to 18 months of formal probation and 60 days in jail, but received credit for time served and will not serve any additional jail time, Weiner said. His probation conditions, Weiner said, include his having to undergo drug treatment and parenting classes.

Moos fled the country in 2004 with a pending federal case in addition to the Washington County case. In federal court, he was accused of misbranding medication, making false statements to the Drug Enforcement Administration and obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation.

Moos' federal case resolved in December when he entered a plea deal and was released from federal custody. Sentencing for the federal case is set for April 18 before U.S. District Judge Garr M. King.

He faces a statutory maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But under federal sentencing guidelines, he faces no more than six months behind bars.

The former doctor surfaced last April in Dubai, where authorities arrested and accused him of impersonating a renowned cosmetic surgeon from Washington, D.C. Moos was reportedly performing cosmetic surgeries on patients at his kitchen table.

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admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Fri, 05/21/2010 - 06:27

how about this one, from
http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2007/06/18/follow-up-doc-sought-for-fraud-turns-up-in-china/

Quote:
Local FBI authorities say “we can’t just go into another country and extradite someone even if they’re an American citizen wanted by the FBI. In this case, he has to be arrested by the Chinese authorities.”

Gabriel would not answer long-distance phone calls made to his Confidant clinic, but he could be found in an online article of praise (from Eurobiz, since removed) for his Beijing practice. Gabriel is quoted in the article saying, “Beijing is awash with cosmetic clinics using phony medications and deceptively credentialed surgeons to do their surgery.”

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admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Fri, 05/21/2010 - 06:22

gotta read this story, from 2003, right before he disappears and turns up in Beijing:

http://wweek.com/editorial/3005/4593/

The best part: after he gets caught with all manner of drugs at his home and office:

Quote:
Early in the morning of Jan. 17, 2003, armed with a search warrant, 28 police officers stormed the Moos home. After ransacking the house for seven hours, officers found the following: one small bottle that was half-filled with ketamine (an animal tranquilizer popular as a club drug), two tablets of ecstasy and one vial containing amphetamine. Later, in a raid conducted at Moos' clinic, officers found a small baggie of cocaine and an amber prescription bottle containing marijuana.

A sparse haul, but it was enough to charge Moos and his wife with possession of controlled substances and child endangerment, which resulted in the removal of their children by state child-welfare workers for over two weeks.

...

Moos calls the search of his home "unlawful" and claims that the drugs in his home were found in a separate dwelling that he rents out. As for the drugs at his clinic, Moos says he knows where those came from, too.

He explains that the cocaine found in his office was tucked away in a box used to store record needles. "My cocaine-addicted secretary was a DJ," he says. "You assign likely ownership."

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