Sign up for email newsletters

Sign up for email newsletters

FDA tests indicate the fluid a Dorchester woman is accused of illegally injecting into the buttocks and lips of patients contained dimethylpolysiloxane, a substance used in breast implant fillers. (Photo illustration)

A Dorchester woman who illegally injected a Colombian massage oil laden with a silicone substance used in toy putty, fast-food products and aquarium sealant into people’s buttocks and lips — at $700 a shot — was performing back-room cosmetic surgery that a medical expert says was ?“potentially life-threatening.”

Between February and September 2011, prosecutors say Valentina Perez Tavarez, 37 — who also went by the alias ?Rossi Tavarez and is not a ?licensed physician or nurse — offered buttock and lip augmentation injections in her Dorchester home.

Tavarez used a substance she referred to as “Metacor” and “Metacrill,” calling it the “best stuff” that lasts “forever” in a recorded conversation, and ?offered to charge $700 per ?injection into each butt cheek.

On Sept. 9, 2011, agents confronted Tavarez, who later admitted she performed the procedure on at least 10 customers using “a clear, viscous liquid” she had shipped to her home from a laboratory in Colombia.

Officials later found the fluid contained dimethylpolysiloxane — a substance commonly used as filler for breast implants. as well as in toy putty, fast-food meats and sweets, aquarium sealants, shampoo, silicone caulks and a variety of everyday products. It is ?approved by the FDA for use in food as an antifoaming agent, but not for injection into the body.

The bottle containing the oil, labeled “Estetical Plus 100% Natural,” had a written description that referred to its contents as “massage oil and provided directions for external skin application” and “did not provide any information or directions for using the substance for subcutaneous cosmetic injections,” according to court documents.

“When it’s an individual who doesn’t have credentials and the proper training, you have to worry about the typical risks that we associate with all procedures, including infection, bleeding and injury to adjacent organs,” said Boston Public Health Commission Director Huy Nguyen.

“You could have foreign body reactions, allergic reactions, migration or movement of the face cream into unwanted parts of your body or your skin — all of these are very dangerous and potentially life-threatening risks,” Nguyen said.

Tavarez pleaded guilty to ?receiving through interstate commerce a misbranded device “and the proffered delivery thereof for pay.” Tavarez, who now lives in New York, could not be reached for comment.

It’s not the first time authorities have uncovered dangerous, illegal plastic surgeries:

• In 2006, a woman died while undergoing a liposuction procedure in a Framingham basement.

• In 2010, two people were charged with running a makeshift operating room in Revere, performing liposuction and other procedures.

Tavarez faces a maximum sentence of up to a year in prison, with one year of supervised release, five years of probation and a fine of $10,000.

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

Sign up for email newsletters