Allegedly forged degrees, surgical equipment and patients' files seized at a Milenio III clinic: the Querétaro 'Dr RAQ' who claimed 15 years' experience and a college presidency

Mexico licenses doctors through the cédula profesional, a licence number issued by the federal education ministry, the SEP, and searchable on its public register. A medical degree alone does not make a plastic surgeon: according to El Financiero, the Ley General de Salud requires a specialty and certification, and the Consejo Mexicano de Cirugía Plástica Estética y Reconstructiva is the body empowered to certify specialists. Other Mexican cases are recorded elsewhere on this site.

In January 2025 the Fiscalía General del Estado de Querétaro announced the arrest of Rodrigo Aguilar, the social-media 'Dr. RAQ', for usurpación de profesiones, unlicensed professional practice. According to El Financiero and N+, the case began with a complaint by a patient who suffered severe complications after a procedure at his clinic in colonia Milenio III and needed hospitalisation and a second operation. El Financiero reported that the authorities said her life had been at risk. Officers searched the clinic.

A control judge bound him over for trial with justified pre-trial detention, according to El Financiero and N+; El Financiero and El Imparcial reported that he was held at CERESO San José El Alto. The accusation is that he performed surgery reserved for specialists without the specialty or certification the Ley General de Salud requires. El Imparcial reported that the search produced presumably forged university degrees, surgical equipment, patients' records and electronic devices. El Financiero noted a similar Querétaro case two months earlier: a woman arrested in November 2024 for posing as a cosmetic surgeon, nicknamed the Querétaro 'Marilyn Cote', with 22 investigation files.

The persuasion happened online. El Financiero reported that he promoted himself mainly on Instagram, that his website claimed 15 years' experience and a master's in cosmetic surgery from an 'Instituto de Estudios de Medicina', and that he presented himself as president of a Colegio de Cirugía Estética del Estado de Querétaro. Reports that he had operated on actresses were unconfirmed by the women named. None of those claims is a licence: a cédula number and a Consejo certification can be checked in public registers, a master's and a presidency cannot. El Financiero reported that the Fiscalía urged patients to confirm a surgeon's Consejo certification, and El Imparcial reported official advice to check the cédula profesional on the SEP website.

For a student weighing a medical degree abroad, the lesson holds. Every serious country keeps a regulator's register, and a credential that cannot be found in it is worth nothing, whatever a website claims. Treat self-awarded titles, unfamiliar associations and celebrity name-dropping as warnings, not reassurance. Find the official register yourself, not through the seller's link, and look the name up before paying anyone. This case reached a court because one patient complained.