A beauty clinic attended by VIPs in the centre of Milan was shut down on Tuesday after police discovered staff had been injecting clients with dangerous chemical substances.
The owner and the director of health at the Mesoterapico Institute in the city were placed under arrest following a police raid that found pharmaceuticals past their use-by date as well as one product that had been recalled by its maker due to safety concerns.
Investigators said the clinic had also been illegally importing and administering products based on the type A botulin toxin, which requires special authorisation in Italy.
The toxin is so powerful that 75 microgrammes can be lethal, police said.
In many cases, clients had been injected with chemicals imported from France and Greece that were highly dangerous if not administered by a doctor.
Although the products were approved by the Italian Medical Agency in therapeutic cases, they had not been greenlighted for use in beauty treatments, according to investigators.
Both women and men were treated at the clinic in Milan and at its sister clinics in Rome and Catania.
Treatments were also administered at luxury hotels on request, police said.
A number of clients, who remain anonymous, told investigators they had suffered physical damage as a consequence of treatments at the clinic.
