Natasha Singer writes for the NYT:
SEVERAL times a week, friends of a Miami clothing importer tip her off about illegal beauty treatments offered by unlicensed practitioners. Recently they have recommended a doctor from Peru who flies in to perform plastic surgery in a Miami apartment, a woman from Colombia who gives shots that melt fat off the hips, and an aesthetician who injects material that permanently bulks up the buttocks, she said. "They call all the time to say that someone from Colombia, Venezuela or Peru is coming to Miami, and he can inject you or do surgery," said the woman, 41, who was not identified to avoid causing her further embarrassment about having tried one of these illicit procedures. Four years ago, the woman said, she and five friends went to a house in Coral Gables, Fla., a wealthy suburb, where a woman — she was introduced as the medical assistant to a renowned plastic surgeon in Colombia — injected their faces with a cosmetic filler to smooth their wrinkles and plump their lips.