Carlos Hernandez Fernandez, 37, has been jailed for six years and ordered to pay $189,000 after posing as a plastic surgeon

A man who posed as a plastic surgeon before conning vulnerable women out of tens of thousands of dollars for botched operations has been jailed.

Carlos Hernandez Fernandez, 37, was sentenced to six years after carrying out tummy tucks, liposuctions and face lifts despite being 'utterly unqualified'.

A Colorado court heard how Fernandez often performed operations with little or no anesthetic, leaving his patients in torturous pain.

Carla Perez, one of the victims, says she went to Fernandez 'as a friend' looking for a nose job.

But the procedure was agony, she told CBS, saying: 'I could feel when he was cutting it open.'

Afterward, she was horrified by the results. 'I was totally bruised, my nose completely dropped, I had no more cartilage, and my septum was completely crooked,' she said.

'He hammered at my septum,' she added. 'With an actual hammer.'

Victim Carla Perez said she went to Fernandez for a nose job, but was left with virtually no cartilage in her nose and a crooked septum which he tried to fix with a hammer

Fernandez had been posing as a surgeon since 2015 via this clinic in Denver, Colorado, where he operated on at least 37 women

Fernandez also targeted immigrant women through the Hernandez Fernandez Clinic in the hope that they would not report the crime for fear of being deported.

Police believe there may be many more victims who used the clinic, which had been operating since at least January 2015, who have not come forward.

While Fernandez claimed to be a fully qualified surgeon, in fact the only training he had received was as a surgical assistant.

Nomi Garcia sad she became ill after an operation by Fernandez, but he advised her not to go to the hospital for fear of being discovered.

She told the court: 'He knew I was ill after one of the surgeries, and he knew that I could have lost my life, and he didn't care.'

Fernandez said the charade started after a friend asked for medical advice, knowing he had training in Mexico, and it snowballed from there.

As well as being jailed, Fernandez was also ordered to pay $189,000 in restitution.

He offered an apology to his victims, saying he never meant to harm them, but arrived at the courthouse with only $1,000.