Police are seeking additional victims of a suspected mother-daughter duo accused of performing illegal butt injection augmentations that led to the death of an aspiring adult actress.
Karissa Rajpaul, 26, died after a series of injections performed by a woman known as La Tia. She is accused along with her daughter of performing these operations even though they were unlicensed and recruited their patients on Instagram, authorities said.
"That's how she would advertise it, everyone knows her as La Tia," says LAPD Valley Bureau Homicide Detective Bob Dinlocker.
Two arrests have been made in the case. Libby Adame and her daughter, Alicia Gomez, are accused of performing the operation on Rajpaul, police said. And police believe many more victims were treated with a liquid silicon mix that when it hits the blood stream, attacks the heart, the brain and the kidneys, police said.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
"These are very dangerous, unlicensed medical practices that are propagating themselves through social media," says LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, adding that he believes victims are afraid to come forward because of embarrassment.
"We need these victims to come forward because we need to find out if there are other victims out there that are permanently disfigured or may have passed away as a result of some of these procedures and may have been a victim of a criminal act," he says.
The mother-daughter duo allegedly would transport their medical supplies to private homes with no regard to any emergency contingency, police said. And if something awry were to happen, the suspects would disappear, leaving paramedics to arrive to an unknown medical emergency, police said.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
Police say if you're a victim of this, even if it's embarrassing to admit, they want to hear from you. You can contact LAPD Valley Bureau Homicide Division at 818-374-9550, you can go online and submit an anonymous tip at www.lapdonline.org or you can call 1-877-LAPD (5273)-247.
