Who’s crazier: the scam artist doing eyelifts in a living room—or her patients?

Jing Qu was arrested for performing illegal surgeries in her local home.

By Rick Lax

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 | 5:19 p.m.

What’s the absolute hardest way to make $1,000? Flipping burgers? Walking around looking for discarded pennies? How about this: Convincing somebody you’re a Chinese doctor, setting up a makeshift clinic, and then actually performing eyelift surgery. If that’s not the No. 1 hardest way, it’s pretty darn close.

But that, allegedly, is precisely what Jing Qu did. Needless to say, she was inept. Inept at the eyelift surgery—her victims were taken to the hospital with bloody faces—and inept at keeping her secret operation a secret. She was turned in after a neighbor looked through Qu’s window and saw the whole operation. Oh, and there were cars—presumably those of Qu’s patients—parked in front of neighbors’ homes, too.

Criminals: If you’re thinking of starting up one of these illegal plastic surgery practices, here’s some friendly advice for you: After you collect your victims’ money, sit them down and say this: “You just got scammed. I’m not really a doctor. Now, knowing that, would you still like me to go through with the surgery?” They’ll say no and they’ll run for their lives. Everybody’s a winner. Or, at the least, drug them and pretend to do the surgery. If they figure things out later, I promise they won’t be upset you didn’t actually go through with it.