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Slick Instagram ads promised the perfect figure at a great price. But for these women, their Brazilian Butt Lift dreams turned into a life-threatening nightmare. It was humid and foggy on that May day in 2018 when Tyesha Washington arrived in New York City for her surgery. A fashion lover who prides herself on keeping up with trends, the then-35-year-old had been wanting a Brazilian Buttlift, or BBL for short, for years. A single mother of two, she hoped the surgery would make her less self-conscious about her body and feeling older.

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – After several deaths at South Florida plastic surgery clinics, local doctors have expressed concerns that patient deaths are only part of a bigger trend that has left dozens of women disfigured and disabled. Marisol Ordonez told Local 10 News investigative reporter Amy Viteri she still suffers from the effects of what happened during her procedure at Jolie Plastic Surgery in August of last year.

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A South Florida clinic’s business practices are under investigation after several patients claimed they paid for procedures they never received and the clinic kept their money. “It was a total of $10,000,” client Mariana Mata told Local 10 News of her experience with Xiluet Plastic Surgery in the Westchester neighborhood of Miami-Dade County.

DORAL, Fla. – A new body-worn camera video obtained by Local 10 News shows the moments inspectors with the city of Doral had to shut down a cosmetic surgery clinic in early March. “You’re operating without a certificate of use and occupancy. I have to shut you down. I am obligated to shut this down,” the city’s building official told the owner of Miami Aesthetic Center by phone.

When 31-year-old Choeun Nuon awoke in the emergency room of Palmetto General Hospital, she remembers hearing the nurses and doctors shouting out her condition: “She’s bleeding! More blood, more blood!” Nuon, who lives in California, had traveled to Miami for liposuction and a Brazilian butt-lift from Dr. Anthony Hasan, a plastic surgeon known for creating shapely “Hasan dolls.” But after her surgery the morning of February 23, 2017, Nuon began feeling woozy.

Carlos Badillo had driven past Florida International University before, but on March 15, 2018, he noticed something he hadn’t seen just a week earlier. It was a little before 2 p.m., and he was driving east on Tamiami Trail with his wife, Martha Plaza Cevallos. Up ahead, a 174-foot bridge had been erected in front of the Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

More than $100,000 worth of rare, collectible gold coins, family heirlooms, jewelry and cash are missing, along with Jennifer Williams Morsch’s safe deposit box at a Chase bank on Dr. Phillips Boulevard. Were they stolen? Did Chase misplace them? The truth is, no one knows for sure what happened in August 2016 when Morsch went to open her box at the local Chase branch — and it wouldn’t open.

It had been three years since Orange County teacher Jennifer Morsch’s lifetime of valuables mysteriously disappeared from her safe deposit box at a Chase bank on Dr. Phillips Boulevard. About $100,000 in jewelry, gold coins and cash were gone. A federal lawsuit Morsch filed against Chase questioning the reliability of bank safe deposit boxes had come and gone, with Chase winning the suit based on a statute of limitations provision.

A South Florida doctor fighting the state’s effort to revoke his license on grounds of repeated medical malpractice is the surgeon whose patient died this week after he performed an undisclosed cosmetic procedure at a clinic in Doral, Miami-Dade police said Friday. Osakatukei “Osak” Omulepu, 44, was performing surgery on a 30-year-old woman from Illinois when police records say she suddenly stopped breathing on Thursday — the same day that Florida’s First District Court of Appeal denied a request from the Department of Health to stop Omulepu from performing liposuction.

MIAMI – Just after dawn, the women arrive. They come in taxis and rental cars, to a strip mall clinic tucked between a barber shop and a discount shoe store. They fly in from across the country for deals they can’t get back home – thousands of dollars off cosmetic surgeries, available, if they like, on payment plans. Inside, the lobby looks like any other surgery center: polished white floors, sleek, modern furniture, a large flat screen flashing images of beautiful bodies.

After years of rampant deaths in Florida’s cosmetic surgery clinics, state lawmakers approved sweeping legislation Wednesday that calls for some of the nation’s strictest controls of the industry. If signed by the governor, the new law would allow the state for the first time to punish dangerous plastic surgery facilities and shut down the worst offenders.

Nyosha Fowler awoke to a nightmare. A month after an outpatient plastic surgery procedure, the Detroit native’s eyes fluttered open. She heard machines beeping, and her mother crying out her name. Fowler’s abdomen gaped open. And she couldn’t walk. Fowler learned that Dr. Osakatukei Omulepu had accidentally punctured her bowels during liposuction and injected fat into her sciatic nerve during a Brazilian butt lift at Spectrum Aesthetics in Florida, according to interviews and Department of Health records.

MIAMI (AP) — Choeun Nuon traveled from her home in California to a Miami-area cosmetic surgery clinic to have a so-called Brazilian butt lift in February 2017. Instead of recovering after the procedure, the 32-year-old mother of two began slipping in and out of consciousness. She eventually passed out because of a severe drop in blood pressure.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Jennifer Morsch was convinced the mystery surrounding her missing heirlooms would never be solved, yet she found herself sitting in her attorney’s office with a box from the state of Florida. In 2016, the items were discovered missing from her bank safety deposit box without explanation. The list of missing items included $20,000 in gold coins, her father’s ring, a coin necklace given to her by her father when she was in college and a diamond and gold necklace.

The difference between life and death during a Brazilian butt lift can be as little as two centimeters. Miscalculate that slight margin of error, bend the cannula the wrong way for just a moment, and fat can enter an inadvertently nicked vein, where it can lead to a fatal pulmonary embolism. It’s too easy a mistake to make, even for an experienced plastic surgeon, which is why the Brazilian butt lift (BBL) has a death rate of 1 in 3,000—far and away the highest of any cosmetic surgery.

It was supposed to be a routine fat transfer, with the goal of a little extra volume in the breasts. Impressed by the photos of his results, Tiffany*, a 26-year-old woman living in Florida, settled on a Miami-based plastic surgeon. Then things took a turn. Tiffany was surprised when she called the clinic this past September and was immediately scheduled for surgery, without being offered an in-person consultation first.

Beregovich speaks with Mega TV Miami correspondent Diana Montano about the pitfalls of unfair refund policies at Miami plastic surgery centers. Clinics linked to Jolie Plastic Surgery were sanctioned and fined by the Florida Attorney General for unfair or deceptive trade practices as far back as 2016. Best advice from Mr. Beregovich: READ EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU SIGN.

Fault Lines investigates Miami’s cosmetic surgery industry and the battle between profits and patient safety.

In this episode of Fault Lines, we look into Florida’s cosmetic surgery industry, which has made national headlines for its high incidence of patient death and disfigurement, especially with regard to the extremely popular Brazilian butt lift (BBL) surgeries.

Mariana van Zeller investigates underground plastic surgery, from motel-room operations to a deadly revelation about Miami’s discount surgery centers.

By Daniel Chang, Kaiser Health News. In hindsight, Nikki Ruston said, she should have recognized the red flags.

Jenny Morsch used to do all her banking at Chase Bank in Orlando, Florida and kept a safe deposit box there as well. To her horror, she says, one day all her cash and priceless possessions were gone.