MIAMI – Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested a man they said was an unlicensed plastic surgeon Thursday.
Manuel Lazzaro was listed on the American Society of Plastic Surgeons website as “Manuel Lazzaro, MD,” a plastic surgeon whose listed practice address is an apartment at 7875 NW 107th Ave. in Doral. He describes himself on Instagram as a “Venezuelan certified Plastic Surgeon in aesthetics, face, breast & body sculpture.”
But Lazzaro, 58, is not in Florida’s medical license database. He appeared in court Friday and required a Spanish interpreter as he faced a charge of practicing health care without a license causing injury.
“The defendant repeatedly does surgeries on victims without having a license,” prosecutor Nessa Eth said.
According to an arrest report, Lazzaro performed surgery on a victim at New World Medical & Mystic Cosmetic Surgery at 2020 SW First St. His arrest comes just a few weeks after the arrest of another Doral man and fellow Venezuelan national, Wilson Muñoz Suarez, accused of practicing without a license at the very same facility in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.
The surgery center was boarded up when Local 10 News went there on Friday.
Muñoz Suarez, 60, and Lazzaro have another thing in common: their occupations were listed as “surgical assistant” in their MDSO arrest reports.
Eth told Judge Mindy Glazer that Lazzaro’s victim, an Orlando woman who had surgery on Sept. 27, 2024, “suffered the loss of her entire nipple” after “her breasts were infected and (he) ignored her complaints and didn’t tell her to go to a legitimate doctor.”
“Had the individual gone to a legitimate doctor they would have been able to save her nipple,” she said. “(He) admitted to practicing medicine and conducting many surgeries without a license.”
The arrest report states that an unnamed co-defendant recommended Lazzaro to the victim after the victim found the co-defendant’s “certified Instagram page.”
Deputies arrested Lazzaro Thursday morning at his home in the 11000 block of Northwest 72nd Terrace.
Prosecutors requested a bond of $15,000, but Glazer set it at $10,000 and ordered him to refrain from working in health care and to stay away from the victim.
Local 10 News contacted the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for comment on Lazzaro’s arrest and inclusion on its website.
Sometime after Local 10 reported Lazzaro’s arrest, the ASPS took down his online listing.
The organization later sent a statement confirming it removed him from its website “pending the results of his case.”
“Dr. Lazzaro is an International Member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) from Venezuela,” the statement reads. “The ASPS Code of Ethics requires members to inform ASPS if a right to practice medicine has been limited, suspended, terminated, or otherwise affected in any state, province, or country for violation of a medical practice act, other statute or governmental regulation or, the Member has been disciplined by any medical licensing authority. Failing to do so makes the member subject to expulsion.”
As of Friday, Lazzaro remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.