(...)Dana
Berkowitz, the author of Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America, makes no
distinction between the opioid junkie and the Botox bandit: “I’m not surprised
by these crimes because Botox is really a sickness.”
Breaking bad for Botox: why theft of the beauty drug
is on the rise
A spate of
US Botox clinics have reported break-ins – and the theft of cosmetic products
worth thousands. What’s going on?
Rene Chun
Tue 8 Oct
2019 06.00 BST
‘Botox is expensive: a single treatment ranges
from $300 to $1,200, depending on how much serum is required and who injects
it.’
The cops in
Sugar Land, Texas, classified case number 19-4317 as a “business burglary”, but
that label hardly does it justice. Captured on surveillance video, the scene
unfolds like a cross between Desperate Housewives and a low-budget heist movie:
a blond woman in black yoga pants and a pink top pulls up to a strip-mall
medical spa in a Mercedes SUV , cuts a hole in the spa’s glass door with a
cordless saw, slips inside, and jogs away with two bulging shoulder bags
allegedly containing $7,000 worth of anti-ageing products, most of it Botox.
“I thought
it would be a big, burly guy throwing a brick through the front window,” says
Alonzo Perez, the owner of BotoxRN, the burgled spa. “But this was someone 5ft
1in and 100lb.” That was on 23 August. Six days later, a suspect who appeared
to be the same woman sawed her way into another BotoxRN spa just up the I-69 in
Houston.
For Perez,
it was déjà vu: lots of broken glass and another $7,000 inventory loss. “There
were iPads and laptops in the office but they weren’t touched,” he says. “This
woman had a very specific objective.” Perez adds that variations of this crime
have become increasingly popular in the area. “Yesterday two Houston medical
spas called me and said something like this had happened to them in broad
daylight: people asked to use the restroom, wandered in back, found the Botox,
and stole it.”
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The Houston
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery clinic was also targeted in August: after
receiving about $2,000 worth of Botox and filler injections, a patient breezed
past the front desk without paying. The name and contact information she
provided might have been fake, but her medical photos (before and after shots
are standard procedure in Botox clinics) were authentic. “This lady gets the
Darwin award,” says Dr Clayton Molivar, the plastic surgeon who administered
the treatments and later posted the photos to social media, helping to identify
the woman. “I don’t want to see her go to jail, but maybe she should wear an
orange suit every Saturday and pick up garbage.”
These
capers aren’t unique to Houston. Media outlets across the country have covered
true crime stories featuring droll headlines about “Botox bandits” in Los
Angeles and “face-filler fraudsters” in Washington. This larceny isn’t gender
specific, either. In January, two men pulled a hit-and-run job at a Los Angeles
Botox spa after racking up $4,000 in services. Nor is the crimewave limited to
the US. In Britain in February, four men raided a warehouse in Witham, Essex,
and made off with a large cache of Azzalure, a botulinum toxin drug similar to
Botox. It was, in crook lingo, a big score; police estimated the shipment’s
value at six figures.
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Why do
people steal Botox? Because it’s expensive. The drug’s manufacturer, Allergan,
sells 100 units – a vial that fits in the palm of a child’s hand – for $601.
And, as every Kardashian knows, 100 Botox units don’t go far. After zapping
forehead wrinkles (20 units), crow’s feet (40 units), “bunny lines” around the
nose (10 units), and those “angry 11s” between the brows (30 units), there’s
nothing left for jawline sculpting (that’s another 15 to 50 units – on each
side of the face). A single Botox treatment ranges from $300 to $1,200,
depending on how much serum is required and who injects it.
According
to the American Society For Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Botox is by far the most
requested aesthetic procedure, with more than 1.8m of them performed last year,
totalling over $1bn in sales.
According
to Dr Jose Rodriguez-Feliz, a plastic surgeon in Coral Gables, Florida, when
thieves make a grab for hundreds of vials at a time from warehouses, they are
usually sold at a steep discount to people offering injections without medical
licenses: “There’s a huge black market for Botox and fillers in south Florida
because they are in high demand and very pricey. Everyone in Miami knows a
place where an unlicensed dentist is treating patients in his garage with Botox
injections.”
This year
in Shasta county, California, Susan Ann Tancreto was charged with eight felony
counts, including unlicensed practice of medicine, mayhem, transporting a
controlled substance, and battery with serious bodily injury. As a nurse at a
day spa, Tancreto allegedly injected her victims with with Botox and fillers
that left some of them, according to the DA’s office, with “significant facial
deformities”. She has pleaded not guilty.
Dr Louis
Malcmacher, the president of the American Academy of Facial Aesthetics, agrees
there’s a thriving underground network of shady Botox providers around the
country, but he fears the problem is even worse than experts claim it is. “I
think a lot of this spa theft is people who are self-injecting,” he says.
“There are nurses and doctors on YouTube who routinely inject themselves. So
consumers get the idea that this is very easy: I could do this on myself. All I
have to do is watch the videos.”
Although
they may feature disclaimers that they aren’t to be used as tutorials, YouTube
videos recorded by medical professionals seeking to expand their brands and
generate likes show just how simple these non-surgical procedures are.
A 2018
study published in the journal Plastic Surgery, titled Saving Face: An Online
Study of the Injecting Use of DIY Botox and Dermal Filler Kits, concluded that
untrained DIY injectors were undeterred by health risks, motivated in part by
affordability, and that online forums and instruction videos had boosted their
confidence.
Dana
Berkowitz, the author of Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America, makes no
distinction between the opioid junkie and the Botox bandit: “I’m not surprised
by these crimes because Botox is really a sickness.” Her tone is sober and
measured, like she’s issuing a surgeon general warning to the public. “Once
people start seeing the lines reappear, they panic.” Having used Botox herself,
Berkowitz knows the power of this drug. “Patients have described Botox to me as
an addiction,” she says. “It’s also a gateway drug to other cosmetic procedures
like dermal fillers.”
Has she
seen the Sugar Land surveillance video, the one Inside Edition tagged “Soccer
Mom Gone Wild?”: Botox Bandit Strikes Again?
“Yes,” she
answers earnestly, as if the attractive woman holding the grinding saw is her
sister, and she won’t say anything that will betray her trust.
“I don’t
condone these crimes, but I do understand the motive,” Berkowitz says. “This
woman is being told we have to do everything in our power to battle the onset
of ageing, and most people can’t afford to do it. This is part of a
larger social problem.”
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