‘Making too much money’: Inside Miami-Dade’s plastic surgery post-op underground

MIAMI — Miami — ground zero in the United States for the Brazilian butt lift, the mommy makeover, breast enlargement and other plastic surgery specialties — has achieved another distinction: It is home to a cottage industry of illegally operating recovery centers for post-op patients who need to hunker down and heal, sometimes for days. Embedded in suburbia, the homes are engaged in a game of whack-a-mole with authorities, who look for vans disgorging bruised and bandaged passengers, and featuring back-alley garbage cans brimming with bandages and other medical waste. Often overcrowded and/or ...