'Red notice'

Interpol said on Friday, December 23, it was after Jean Claude Mas, the founder of the breast implant company whose faulty products could be potentially affecting 30,000 French women.

Mas, 72, whose picture is published on the Interpol website, is listed as being sought in Costa Rica for offences concerning "life and health."

On Friday France's health ministry advised 30,000 women with breast implants made by the now-bankrupt Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) to have them removed, saying that while there is no proven cancer risk, they could rupture and cause health problems.

But in Britain, where an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 women are affected, Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies played down the warnings.

"Women with PIP implants should not be unduly worried,” Davies said. “We have no evidence of a link to cancer or an increased risk of rupture. If women are concerned they should speak to their surgeon."

Already banned

Tens of thousands of women in over 65 countries around the world have the same implants, made from industrial rather than medical quality silicon. Most of them live in South America and Western Europe.

PIP, once the world's third largest breast implant company supplying more than 100,000 implants a year, was shut down and its products banned last year after it was revealed to have been using the non-authorized silicon gel.

Interpol's red notice is tantamount to an international arrest warrant, though the agency, as a facilitator of cooperation among national police forces, does not have the authority to issue warrants in the formal sense.

The two Interpol photos show Mas wearing a grey and white beard, one with and one without glasses, holding a sign with the date June 1, 2010 on it.

Author: Gabriel Borrud (AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Toma Tasovac