Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
Woman nabbed for illegal cosmetic surgery
A police officer at Seongbuk Police Station in Seoul, Monday, displays medical instruments seized from an ethnic Korean-Chinese woman who performed illegal medical procedures on four women after telling them she had been a plastic surgeon back in China. / Yonhap
By Kim Rahn
By Kim Rahn
A 43-year-old ethnic Korean-Chinese woman has been arrested for performing illegal cosmetic procedures on women here after falsely claiming she had worked as a plastic surgeon back in China.
According to the Seongbuk Police Station in Seoul, Monday, the woman, surnamed Ju, allegedly provided the illegal procedures without a medical license over six times to four women in their 40s to 60s from November 2018 to April this year. She received 5 million won ($4,319) in total from them in return.
Carrying medical instruments in her bag, Ju allegedly performed procedures such as wrinkle removal and filler injections at the homes of the women, who were introduced by one of Ju's acquaintances.
Ju claimed she had been a plastic surgeon in China and gave the treatments at about half the prices charged at legitimate cosmetic surgery clinics.
But she had never obtained a medical license, and she offered unhygienic treatments, not sterilizing the instruments. One of the victims had an 8-centimeter-wide necrosis scar on her forehead, according to police.
Ju told police she learned about the medical procedures by watching others doing them when she worked in a cosmetic surgery-related job in China.