An aesthetic center in Madrid offered ‘lifts’ with a fake machine that acted “blindly” on patients | Spain

She has had a fake machine used to perform beauty treatments in an aesthetic clinic in Madrid. lifting with which the business, which has all legal permits, was offering therapies at prices that were around 1,000 euros, a price within the market ranges. The device looked like the real thing, which makes deep burns into the skin to combat facial and neck sagging, but it did not have the capacity to do ultrasounds of patients, necessary for the treatment to be applied to the appropriate skin depth. Instead of the image from an ultrasound machine, it broadcast a recorded and looped video that made the patient believe that the images they were seeing corresponded to the state of their skin.

“We verified that [el aparato] It emitted energy, it could melt plastic,” explained this Friday Inspector Manuel Contador, responsible for the investigation at the Canillas police complex in Madrid. “Some cartridges used by the machine were spent,” added Contador, head of the Police’s industrial property crimes group. The removal of the machine has prevented the device from continuing to be used and causing “possible burns” to patients. However, the agent has specified that there are no personal injuries to clients and that Nor has any similar counterfeit machine been detected in the country.

The original device, which uses ultrasonic energy, has a market price that exceeds 70,000 euros. The replica, imported from China, cost only 4,800 euros. Investigators have arrested the administrator of the company that bought the counterfeit device in a polygon on the outskirts of Toledo for crimes against industrial property and. They are also investigating the owner of the aesthetic center for the same facts.

This type of machine uses HIFU technology, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, a very popular system in the sector. The representative in Spain of the brand, which has a registry of all the devices in the country – which must be used with the supervision of a doctor – reported that there could be a fake device. The agents did an analysis of social networks, and where these treatments were offered. They located the aesthetic center of the fake machine in the Madrid neighborhood of Moncloa and went to the place, where they verified that, indeed, the device was a fake. It was unused in a room at the facility and the owners said it had been used only “three times.”

The actual device makes ultrasounds of the skin that guide the doctor in applying the treatment. But the imitation machine did not offer that necessary support to the healthcare worker. “We tested the shot and saw that it delivers a lot of heat,” the representative of the beauty company assures a police officer in a video released this Friday. “You are really blind, you can cause a lot of damage. At a superficial level, they could be visible burns. And if it is at a deep level, then burns in areas that should not be treated,” he specifies.

The appearance of the seized machine is quite similar to the original, although it had some different and poorer quality details, according to police sources. Thus, the cart was similar, but the handles differed slightly and the gun also had some screws that the original does not have. “They are subtle differences that, if you are not very knowledgeable about technology, you may not notice,” explains the company representative.

A few years ago, the industrial property crimes group, which investigates counterfeiting of electronic and public health products, carried out a similar investigation where machines of this style were intervened, although with less advanced technology. The biggest difference with the previous ones, they explain, is that this last machine did not have the ultrasound machine. “If they have it, they can know where to apply the energy point; if the ultrasound machine is not there, it is as if they were giving you the treatment.” roughly“, explained the inspector.