The Botox Case Widens: Doctors Detained Too, Searches at Five Locations in Skopje

The investigation into the illegal import and use of botox, known to the public as the "botox case", is widening further - and now doctors are being drawn into it as well. Two more doctors and one other person have been detained, and searches were carried out at five locations in Skopje, among them health institutions.

It concerns the illegal import, distribution and use of medical products and devices. By court orders, the prosecution has extended the measures to new suspects, and among them are people with a medical licence - which makes the story more serious than ordinary smuggling. When products that passed through an illegal channel end up in patients' skin, the risk isn't abstract, it's literal.

The question worth asking is how illegal botox reaches the surgeries with a doctor's signature at all. The aesthetic-treatment industry is booming, demand is high, and where there's fast money, oversight often lags behind. The suspects have been detained, but the real test will be whether responsibility reaches everyone in the chain - or only the smallest links.