Complexed by her hips and buttocks, Sandra contacted a woman posing as a doctor on Instagram in May.
The social network is full of accounts offering this type of injection under the cloak, which can only be carried out in France by professionals.
Appointment is made in a Parisian apartment summarily furnished, in particular with a “table with a mattress pad”, testifies the thirty-something to AFP.
The operation, poorly executed, turns into a nightmare.
"In total, I had three abscesses removed until October, three others resolved with the antibiotics. These infections were caused by staphylococcus aureus. I was on antibiotics for almost five months. And a nurse came every evening to wick (clean, editor’s note) the cavities”, she says.
In January, Sandra filed a complaint against her "injector" but many victims do not dare, laments lawyer Laëtitia Fayon: "very often, they are ashamed of the approach they have taken to go see someone illegally".
Less cumbersome than conventional cosmetic surgery operations, such as the placement of implants, clandestine injections are attracting more and more women.
These are essentially bites of hyaluronic acid - a gel that gives volume - or botulinum toxin, popularized under the name Botox, which relaxes the muscles.
Performed without any qualification, these acts present many dangers.
Necroses
“First there is the risk of infection and hematoma,” explains Dr. Adel Louafi.
"If you prick anywhere, you can inject it right in the middle of an artery and therefore block it. However, certain arteries in the face irrigate the lip, the nose, which then undergo necrosis. You then have to amputate" .
"Other arteries irrigate the eye and communicate with the brain. There, you risk losing your sight, or even a stroke", adds the president of the National Syndicate of Reconstructive and Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (SNCPRE), which alerts on a practice that has been increasing sharply for "two-three years".
More and more women are resorting to clandestine injections of hyaluronic acid, a potentially dangerous act of aesthetic medicine LOIC VENANCE AFP / Archives
The danger can also come from the injected content.
The injectors not being "doctors, they do not have official access to the resale networks of these products, so they are supplied on the internet and there, we have real products or counterfeits", deciphers the commissioner William Hippert, chief the Organized Crime Information, Intelligence and Strategic Analysis Service.
Whether they have been fooled, have sinned by ignorance of the law or have knowingly fallen into illegality, "some patients who come to see us to + repair + the complications or horrors born of illegal injections do not even know what they are being told. injected!”, says Dr. Lydia Houri, president of the French Society of Morphological and Anti-Aging Medicine.
According to Valentin Chabbi, aesthetic doctor at La Madeleine (Nord), demand is growing, especially since the start of the Covid epidemic.
"The period is more anxiety-provoking, people need to take care of themselves. And faced with the difficulty of responding quickly to demand, since there are not many of us, some are turning to illegality", develops he.
The growth in demand has also been boosted by social networks, where influencers with luscious lips or plump buttocks promote certain products.
financial windfall
"It's fashionable to have big lips. But the girls who follow these influencers are young and don't have a lot of money. So they go to these injectors who have competitive prices", launches the one of them, Luna Skye.
The young woman herself received 80 doses of hyaluronic acid in the buttocks for 7,500 euros, twice the market price.
The injections are essentially injections of hyaluronic acid - a gel that gives volume - or botulinum toxin, popularized under the name Botox, which relaxes the muscles WIN MCNAMEE Getty/AFP/Archives
Stung by a doctor but outside "of any health protocol", according to her, she was hospitalized for five months after contracting staphylococcus aureus and then sepsis.
Sandra, she paid 600 to 700 euros for four injections, seven times cheaper than the official price.
Out of greed, some injectors offer prices barely below those on the market, according to the doctors interviewed, especially if the poor quality of the product requires new injections at regular intervals.
These "fake injectors" are eyeing a slice of the beauty market pie, "expanding globally".
"In 2019, it represented nearly 11 billion dollars, half of which represented by injectable products. There is a big windfall to be made", confirms Commissioner Hippert who lists "business every month" involving fraudulent injections .
In early January, a 22-year-old woman was arrested with, according to a police source, 5,000 euros in cash and boxes of new syringes placed on the passenger seat of her car.
In his two mobile phones, the investigators discovered Instagram notifications with the words "injection.paris".
She was charged in Paris for "illegal practice of medicine", "concealed work", "trafficking in substances classified as psychotropic" and "laundering", according to a judicial source.
Russian or independent
In another case, at the end of 2020, two women admitted to investigators that they had performed 1,000 injections over a year, in the Paris region and in Switzerland.
They had followed "a three-day teletraining by a Russian doctor and thought it was legal", says William Hippert.
Apart from certain product smuggling networks, the police officer does not note "at this stage no very structured organizations".
The "fake injectors", aged like their clientele from 25 to 40 years old, meet two profiles.
"We had several cases with young Russian women (a method of injecting hyaluronic acid into the lips is also called + Russian Lips +, editor's note), who had moved to France and had set up clandestine clinics, very often a room or a rented apartment to offer these services", he lists.
"They are mobile, they do not necessarily stay in France. They do a + botox tour +" and leave for another circuit, continues Commissioner Hippert.
One of these clandestine clinics was thus discovered in September in Marseille (south-east).
Another sector, describes the policeman, "young women who embark on an independent activity, sometimes beauticians who can work in a salon and, alongside this activity, or even within the salon, will offer injections"
Lawyer Laëtitia Fayon filed nine complaints, including six in Paris, on behalf of SNCPRE against false injectors for "deception and illegal practice of medicine".
Asked by AFP, the Paris prosecutor's office confirmed that it had opened an investigation on October 28 into the illegal exercise of a regulated activity, after receiving the six complaints.
Other investigations are underway for this kind of practice, he said.
*The first name has been changed at the request of the person concerned.
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© 2022 AFP