BUCHAREST, Romania – Authorities in Romania are investigating an Italian citizen who allegedly posed as a plastic surgeon in clinics around Bucharest.

The College of Medics said Tuesday that it hadn’t issued Matteo Politi, who used the alias Matthew Mode, with a license to practice.

Romanian health authorities, who must also issue a separate permit to doctors, say he was given one in March 2018 after submitting a fake diploma claiming he’d qualified as a doctor in Kosovo.

Libertatea newspaper reported that a nurse became suspicious, saying he didn’t know how to wash his hands or put on surgical gloves properly. In one case, a nurse reported that a breast implant surgery lasted four hours instead of one.

Health Minister Sorina Pintea blamed private clinics for allowing Politi, reported to be 38, to work without a permit. Health authorities are looking into how he obtained a permit.

According to reports, Politi had worked as a plastic surgeon in a number of private clinics in the capital, Bucharest, for about a year. The Italian-owned Monza Group said Tuesday it was suing him. It said he’d performed just one operation, in December 2018.

Italian media reported in 2011 that Politi received a suspended 18-month sentence for having posed as a doctor without a license. Reports said he had only completed middle school, yet managed to work in hospitals in Verona, Brescia, Turin and Pordenone using the name of a real doctor, Luigi Vincenzo Politi.

There were no immediate reports of patients suffering as a result of the Romanian surgeries. Politi’s whereabouts wasn’t immediately known.