Doctor, whose real name is Denis Furtado, is a suspect in the death of a female patient

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Police in Rio de Janeiro said they were close to arresting a celebrity plastic surgeon known as “Dr Bumbum” or “Dr Butt”, after the death of a patient who underwent a buttock procedure in his apartment.

Arrest warrants for homicide were issued for Denis Furtado and his mother, Maria Barros, after the death of Lilian Calixto, 46, a bank employee from Cuiabá in central Brazil who had travelled to Rio for the treatment.

“We are on his trail,” said Adriana Belem, a detective. “We will get him soon.”

According to Rio’s regional council of medicine, Furtado – who had more than 600,000 Instagram followers and used social media to share before and after photos of his buttock-firming treatments and other procedures – was not registered to work in the state. The Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery said he was not a trained plastic surgeon.

A court in Rio said Furtado’s mother had also had her medical licence removed.

Belem said police had spotted Furtado after going to his office in a shopping centre but he escaped.

The G1 news website said Calixto visited Rio for an aesthetic treatment on her buttocks carried out in Furtado’s top-floor apartment in the upscale beachside neighbourhood of Barra de Tijuca on Saturday.

Security camera footage later that night showed Furtado, his mother and Renata Fernandes, his girlfriend and receptionist, pushing Calixto into the Barra D’Or hospital in a wheelchair.

The hospital said she was in “an extremely severe condition” and died two hours later. Fernandes is in police custody.

In a post on his Facebook page on 6 July, Furtado published before and after photos of a female patient’s buttocks after he applied Poly(methyl methacrylate) – or PMMA – a synthetic resin also known as acrylic glass filler.

The Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society said it had “repeatedly alerted the population over the risks of the procedure known as PMMA” in a statement on its website. The society said it was also prohibited to perform treatments in a private home.

The Brazilian network TV Globo broadcast a telephone call recorded between Furtado’s mother and another patient, who decided against a procedure when she discovered it would take place in Furtado’s apartment. Furtado had also performed treatments at his home in the capital, Brasília.

Thais Morais, 22, said that two years ago she worked briefly for Furtado and his mother as a nursing technician at a house he owned in the upmarket Lago Sul area of the Brazilian capital, where Furtado is registered as a doctor, but left after he failed to pay her salary.

She said Furtado carried out procedures such as Botox in an upstairs room in his mansion: “He did not have a clinic, his clinic was his house.”

In a statement released to Brazilian media, Furtado’s lawyer, Naiara Baldanza, said: “Any conclusion about the death of Lilian Calixto and the eventual responsibility of my client about this fatality is premature.”

She said she last spoke to Furtado on Saturday night and that he faces other legal processes in Brasília and refused to answer questions.