Six phony plastic surgeons convicted of using fake degrees in Colombia

The Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Bogotá on Wednesday sentenced six alleged plastic surgeons to seven years in prison for falsifying documents and procedural fraud. Óscar Javier Sandoval Estupiñán, Francisco José Sales Puccini, Carlos Elías Sales Puccini, Juan Pablo Robles Álvarez, Ronald Ricardo Ramos Daza and Jorge Nempeque Domínguez filed phony medical degrees with the Colombian Ministry of Education and put the health of numerous patients who used their services at risk under the assumption that they were legally qualified surgeons, the ruling found. The court has issued an arrest warrant against all six and sentenced each one of them to pay fines worth the equivalent of 200 minimum wages (about $51,000).

The court found that, between March and November 2014, the alleged plastic surgeons gave the Ministry of Education phony records of a postgraduate course in aesthetic and plastic medicine awarded by Veiga de Almeida University, in Brazil. But they never actually followed those studies and the documents were false. Ministry officials at first did not recognize the ruse, and validated the documents, allowing all six to work legally as plastic surgeons in Colombia.

The ruling reverses an earlier decision by a lower court, made on April 23, in which a judge acquitted the six doctors on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence for a conviction.

One of those convicted is Francisco José Sales Puccini, who performed breast reduction surgery on the journalist and activist Lorena Beltrán twice in 2017. After two operations, Beltrán experienced worrying side effects. “My nipples began to turn black and when I touched them the skin began to fall,” she explained after the procedure.

Seven years later, Beltrán is celebrating the conviction. “The doctor who destroyed my breasts was sentenced to seven years in prison,” Beltrán wrote. In a video, she said that the decision of the Criminal Chamber is “a boost” not only for her, but “for all the victims of cosmetic surgeries in Colombia”, the country with the third-highest number of such procedures per capita in the world, according to data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

The ruling comes just two weeks after the death in Bogotá of Laura Sofía Amaya due to complications after a cosmetic procedure. So far this year, at least six women have died in Colombia after a procedure of this type, according to the Bogotá Health Secretariat. Amaya’s family said that the person who operated on her, Brenda Gissel Celeita Angarita, was not really a surgeon. The Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on September 22 that it was investigating the case.

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