Most medical tourism fraud follows the same pattern: a clinic you can’t verify, operating from a space that was never licensed for medical care, run by someone whose credentials you can’t check. Colombia’s own health authorities closed hundreds of these operations in the last two years. The pattern is avoidable, but only if you check three things before you pay anything.
The same red flags apply across specialties, from veneers to a tummy tuck to anything else you might travel for.
Red flags to watch for
A few patterns show up again and again in documented fraud and safety cases:
- No verifiable physical address, or a facility operating from an apartment, converted storefront, or other space that was never authorized for medical procedures.
- The doctor’s name doesn’t turn up in any official license registry, or the clinic won’t tell you which registry to check.
- Pressure to pay the full amount upfront, especially by wire transfer to a personal account with no way to get your money back.
- Advertising that promises a pain-free procedure, no recovery time, or guaranteed results. Every procedure carries risk, and a provider who won’t say so is a warning sign.
- You never speak with the actual doctor until the day of the procedure.
What Colombia has closed in two years, with the numbers
Bogotá’s Secretary of Health reported closing 379 illegal aesthetic establishments in the two years before May 2026, following cases including the death of a patient after an unauthorized laser lipolysis procedure at an unlicensed facility. Antioquia, the department that includes Medellín, ran a parallel campaign: 80 inspections closed 64 illegal clinics after 17 deaths and 379 documented complications linked to cosmetic procedures over the same two years. Both are officially reported, current numbers, not historical scandal.
The pattern behind almost every one of these cases is the same: an unlicensed provider, an unauthorized facility, or both.
How to check a clinic and a doctor yourself
Colombia runs two public registries you can search yourself, for free:
- RETHUS confirms a doctor’s medical license is active. Search their full name and ID number through the Ministry of Health’s public lookup.
- REPS, governed by Resolución 3100 de 2019, confirms whether a specific facility is authorized to perform the procedures it’s offering.
For plastic surgeons specifically, add a third check against the Sociedad Colombiana de Cirugía Plástica’s own directory, since a general medical license doesn’t confirm plastic surgery training on its own. The full walkthrough, including how Elena runs all of these checks for you, is at how Elena verifies doctors.
What US health authorities say
The CDC lists lower licensing and facility standards as a risk of care abroad, and recommends confirming a provider’s credentials before you travel. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons warns specifically against providers who won’t let you meet the surgeon before the day of the procedure, calling out “surgery factory” operations with no follow-up. The American Dental Association gives similar guidance for dental care. None of this is about avoiding treatment abroad. It’s about checking first.
Elena runs these checks for free, and tells you what it found, including anything it couldn’t confirm.
Key takeaways
- Fraud follows a pattern: no verifiable license, pressure to pay upfront, and no written quote.
- Colombia has cracked down on illegal clinics; your job is telling the licensed ones apart.
- Check the license in RETHUS and get every number in writing before you book.
- Elena runs these checks for free, before you pay anyone.
