An illustration of a woman receiving an injection in her lips from a syringe.
A woman posing as a nurse has given thousands of injections of counterfeit Botox and fillers at her Massachusetts beauty spas, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Rebecca Fadanelli, 38, was arrested Friday on suspicion of importing fake Botox and the fillers Sculptra and Juvederm from Brazil and China, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said. The Stoughton woman continued offering counterfeit beauty treatments through Skin Beaute Med Spa up through this week, according to the criminal complaint filed in court, despite her offices in Randolph and South Easton having been searched.
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Fadanelli was due in federal court in Worcester Friday afternoon to face charges of importing and and selling counterfeit drugs and devices, which bring the possibility of decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for a conviction, prosecutors said. It wasn't immediately clear if she had an attorney who could speak to the charges.
"For years, Ms. Fadanelli allegedly put unsuspecting patients at risk by representing herself to be a nurse and then administering thousands of illegal, counterfeit injections," acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement, saying she "ignored safety regulations against bringing unapproved, counterfeit drugs and devices into our country and endangered the health of hundreds of her clients."
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His office asked anyone who believes they may have gotten a counterfeit treatment at Skin Beaute Med Spa or through Fadanelli since 2021 to reach out — see the link below.
If you or a family member believe you received services involving a counterfeit drug or counterfeit device from Fadanelli and/or Skin Beaute Med Spa between 2021- present date, please complete the questionnaire located on the FDA’s website: https://t.co/dMMCHu0S65.
— U.S. Attorney Massachusetts (@DMAnews1) November 1, 2024
Fadanelli an aesthetician who isn't licensed or certified to give prescription drugs, collected more than half a million dollars from Botox appointments and more than $400,000 from filler appointments between March 2021 and March 2024, prosecutors said.
Federal customs investigators had already been looking into whether Fadanelli, who also goes by Rebecca Daley and Rebecca Hawthorne, when a client filed a complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration saying she had "bumps" in her lips and forehead tingling after receiving a filler treatment from Fadanelli in Randolph and never received a copy of the prescription for the substance that Fadanelli had injected despite asking for it, according to the court documents.
Over the next few years, investigators seized packages with apparently counterfeit injectable prescription drugs labeled Botox, Sculptra and Juvederm, and found her entering the country at Boston's Logan International Airport with prescription drugs and vials of liquid, the documents said. A search turned up no record of Fadanelli buying the real prescription drugs through the companies that make them.
When agents searched the Skin Beaute Med Spa businesses in late June, Fadanelli allegedly told them a certified nurse is the only person who administers the drugs, but a former employee told investigators that Fadanelli administered the drugs, saying she was a nurse.
The former employee also said that she'd been told the Botox cost $50 through a China-based ecommerce platform, according to the criminal complain, which noted that authentic Botox costs more than 10 times as much. The employee also claimed that when her packages started to be intercepted, Fadanelli began shipping them to different addresses, including to an acquaintance in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.
A confidential source had an April consultation with Fadanelli in which she quoted $450 for a Botox treatment, according to the complaint. That same source called and made an appointment for a treatment with Fadanelli last week.
