Beauty clinic owner ordered to pay €5,000 fine over unauthorised ‘Botox-like’ treatments

A Dublin beauty clinic owner who claimed she was “under pressure from clients” to provide unauthorised Botox-like treatments from South Korea has avoided jail but must pay €5,000 in fines and costs. Diana Baznat, of Latchford Square, Clonee, Dublin, was convicted following an investigation by the Health Products Regulatory Authority. She pleaded guilty to illegally importing unauthorised prescription-only Botulinum Toxin (Botulax) into the State at Dublin Airport on or about March 23rd, 2025, and keeping the product, Re N Tox, containing Botulinum Toxin, for supply without a prescription at D’Clinic in Blanchardstown on June 12th, 2025. The seizure came after the regulatory authority had warned her about using these products previously.READ MORERegulatory authority enforcement officer Alan Smullen told Judge Michael Ramsey that customs officers had detained a package containing 30 boxes of the treatments which had been addressed to the defendant. Her business was subsequently searched, and more products were recovered.The court heard she admitted supplying them and stated that she was aware she should not have, due to the 2021 investigation and her prior dealings with the regulatory authority.Pleading for leniency, defence solicitor Peter Connolly asked the judge to note his client’s early guilty plea and submitted that the importation was amateurish, with her address on the box and “no subterfuge involved”.He told the court that the mother of two came from Moldova originally, has been in business in Ireland for six years and has one employee. The court heard that she had trained as a nurse in Moldova before moving to Ireland. Baznat understood it was a serious matter and was apologetic.Connolly said she felt under pressure from clients, mostly from Moldova and Romania, to use the treatments out of financial necessity but has now stopped.Ramsey ordered her to pay the fines and costs within six months.