A raid in a Liniers apartment
A 44-year-old woman has been charged with illegally practising medicine after officers searched a private apartment on Cuzco Street in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Liniers, where an aesthetic centre was operating. Personnel from the City Police carried out the operation. According to the findings, invasive medical treatments were being given there, including hyaluronic acid fillers and platelet-rich plasma applications, while the woman in charge held neither a qualifying degree nor any professional registration.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6]
The inquiry began with an anonymous complaint warning that medical-style aesthetic procedures were being performed by someone without the required professional credentials. The case sits with Prosecutor's Office No. 30 for Criminal, Contraventional and Misdemeanour Matters of the city's Public Prosecution Service, led by prosecutor Diego Espada, which assigned field work to the City Police division handling crimes against health and personal safety.[S1]
Social media profile and a health ministry check
Investigators reviewed social networks and other open sources and found a profile linked to the suspect in which she presented herself as a dermocosmetologist and a specialist in platelet-rich plasma treatment. In a video posted on her accounts, a person described as a client called her a fairy godmother of hair care. The complaint stated that she offered platelet-rich plasma applications to stimulate hair growth and for cosmetic purposes on the face and other parts of the body, along with hyaluronic acid fillers and botulinum toxin injections.[S1]
None of those procedures may lawfully be carried out by people outside the registered health system, because all of them involve breaking the skin with injections or administering products parenterally, which classifies them as medical acts under Law 17.132, the Argentine statute governing medical practice that requires a licensed physician or dermatologist. To confirm the irregular situation, the prosecutor's office requested a report from the national Ministry of Health, which determined that the property was not registered as a facility authorised for any kind of treatment. The suspect also did not appear in the national register of health professionals or in the integrated Argentine health training system.[S1]
What officers seized in the treatment room
With that backing, Espada sought a search warrant from Criminal, Contraventional and Misdemeanour Court No. 16, whose head, judge Ezequiel Martín Quaine, authorised it. Inside, officers found the apartment set up as a consulting room, with a treatment couch, aesthetic equipment and a wide range of medical supplies. Among the items seized were laboratory centrifuges, microneedling devices, hypodermic needles, scalpel blades, vacuum blood collection tubes, glass ampoules of pharmacy-compounded products and bottles of acids in high concentrations.[S1]
Officers also found containers holding pathological waste and a cold-chain bag containing syringes with plasma, a tube of plasma and an ampoule of 10 percent calcium chloride. One of the most significant finds was plasma that had already been prepared and kept in refrigerators, ready to be applied. Investigators further seized medical and aesthetic equipment thought to have entered the country irregularly, plus products lacking the corresponding paperwork or health registration with the National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology.[S1]
The documentation recovered included patient records, signed and stamped prescriptions, blank prescription pads bearing the city government letterhead, professional stamps, framed course certificates and business diaries. Two mobile phones, a laptop and storage devices were also taken and will be examined as part of the case. When the operation ended, Espada ordered everything found to be seized and charged the woman with illegal practice of medicine under article 208, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code. The courts upheld the seizures and ordered that she be formally notified. The case remains with Prosecutor's Office No. 30, with Court No. 16, Secretariat No. 32, headed by María Mercedes Rubio, involved.[S1]
