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| President of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) Jean-Claude Mas, holding a br*ast implant in January this year |
An international manhunt has begun for a former butcher at the centre of a br*ast implants scandal affecting thousands of British women, police announced yesterday.
Interpol is searching for Jean-Claude Mas, the 72-year-old founder of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), which sold thousands of implants full of industrial silicone to women all over the world, including some 40,000 in the UK.
The company, which was based in Marseilles, in the south of France, was liquidated by judges earlier this year, with Mas ‘disappearing’, according to detectives.
Now Interpol, the international police organisation based in Lyon, has issued a ‘red notice’ saying that Mas is wanted for ‘threatening life and health’ in Costa Rica.
All of his alleged crimes relate to PIP, which was founded in 1991, and sold its products to around 65 countries.
The implants regularly split open, although both the British and French governments have all but ruled out any links to cancer.
Despite the focus of the Interpol investigation being on Costa Rica, Yves Haddad, the lawyer for the now bankrupt PIP said neither Mas nor Claude Couty, the company’s former accounts manager, had fled to Latin America.
Mr Haddad said that both men remained in France and would cooperate with the authorities, but would publicly remain silent out of ‘decency and discretion.’
Mas started his career as butcher selling ham and sausage but then moved into the lucrative plastic surgery market.
Of the 30,000 PIP implants fitted in France, more than 1,000 have split open. Investigators said PIP saved almost 1 million pounds a year by using industrial silicone instead of more expensive medical silicone.
France announced it is to pay for thousands of women to have their faulty br*ast implants removed – while the British government insisted it would take no action.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said that there was no cancer link to the implants but there were ‘well established risks of ruptures’, making their removal advisable as a ‘preventive measure’.
But, following the announcement, British Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘We do not need the routine removal of these implants. But if anybody is worried then they should speak to their GP, and get their clinical advice.’
The corrective surgery in France will be paid for out of public health funds, with a new implant funded if the treatment was done as part of reconstructive surgery following br*ast cancer.
At least 250 British women are taking legal action against the clinics that treated them.
They are unlikely to be able to sue PIP itself but because it has been declared bankrupt it has no money and no assets.
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