Two sisters, very present on social networks, were sentenced Wednesday in Valenciennes (North) to prison and suspended sentences for hundreds of illegal botox and hyaluronic acid injections.
The eldest, a 25-year-old beautician who presented herself as “Dr Lougayne” on social networks, was sentenced to four years in prison, three of which were suspended for “endangering others” or even “illegal exercise of profession of medicine”. The criminal court requested his continued detention, considering that there was “not enough consideration given to the seriousness of the facts”.
Her younger sister, 22 years old, who admitted to having assisted her, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence. The court followed the requisitions of the prosecution, which had compared the injections to “drug trafficking”. The defense lawyer, Me Julien Bensoussan, stressing that his client had recognized the facts and understood their seriousness, denounced a “scandalous” decision, indicating that he was considering an appeal “seriously”.
Destroyed faces
The court listed at the hearing the after-effects presented by some of the 30 civil parties: abscess on the chin requiring emergency operation, severe skin rash, partially paralyzed mouth, drooping eyelids, lumps or spots on the lips. With black hair carefully pulled back and lips swollen with hyaluronic acid, the two sisters assured that they wanted to “beautify” their clients, recognizing the injections, but not the serious side effects.
“I felt like I looked like a leper,” the only man among the plaintiffs, a fifty-year-old who had had botox injected, told the hearing. “I couldn’t touch my face because it was so painful. Today, I still have difficulty keeping my eyelids open following the injections,” he continues. “I’m going to have to have surgery. »
At least 600 customers
Selma, 24, says she contacted “Dr Lougayne” after a reality TV candidate “attended an injection session with her”. “Now I have brown spots on my lips, I’m self-conscious,” regrets the young girl, who does not wish to give her name. “I was stupid, I trusted. » Highlighting a “public health problem”, the lawyer for the National Union of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (SNCPRE), Laetitia Fayon, stressed that in the “hunt for fake injectors [faux injecteurs en angalis, Ndlr]the victims are too little present”, out of “shame” or “fear”.
The gendarmes, who identified and contacted certain victims themselves, counted at least 600 customers between January 2021 and July 2023. On May 14, during a session in Valenciennes, the gendarmes arrested the two sisters. At their home, they seized around a hundred syringes, as well as vials of hyaluronic acid and botox from Russia and Korea, as well as 14,000 euros in cash, luxury items and two large cars. Investigators estimate that their activity brought in at least 120,000 euros in less than three years.
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