The failure in Madrid of the dentist of the misses

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dentist Víctor Sánchez, actress and first runner-up of Miss Venezuela 1999 Norkys Batista, and Miss Universe 2013 Gabriela Isler, during the Miss Venezuela 2015 party.

In Venezuela, Víctor Sánchez entered the auditoriums through the back door, passing through a smoke screen, and walked the corridor protected by escorts while some electronic music hit was playing. He was a star of cosmetic dentistry, a phenomenon difficult to understand in Spain, but less surprising in a country like his, obsessed with beauty. He "made the smile" to dozens of Venezuelan misses, was a couple of renowned models and actresses and charged a fortune for each treatment. All that brightness contrasts with the clandestinity of his project in Madrid, a clinic that opened without permits in 2018 in a peripheral neighborhood and whose transfer ended up being offered on the Bazaar-style website Mil Ads.

His partner in Madrid was Andrés Durán, a young Venezuelan dentist who saw the opportunity of a lifetime when Sánchez asked him to open the clinic together. "That Sánchez makes you a proposal like this is as if the businessman Gerard Piqué offers you to partner with him to invest in the Davis Cup," Durán, 26, explains to this newspaper, looking for a simile so that he can understand how the illusion blinded him completely and prevented him from seeing that they were taking advantage of him.

When Durán was studying at the university in Venezuela, between 2012 and 2014, Sánchez was his idol, his role model. During those years, Sánchez became famous because he revolutionized the dental aesthetics sector thanks to the computer techniques and the ceramic prostheses that he used to “design smiles”, with a more lasting shine than the traditional resin ones. The misses that won the regional contests knocked on his door. As if they were Formula 1 mechanics, dentists like Sánchez and plastic surgeons who did breast implants or liposuction, prepared the models for the grand final, Miss Venezuela, the show that paralyzes the South American country in front of TV, like here when they play Real Madrid and Barcelona.

But there was something else that explained Sánchez's success.

He was a pioneer in the use of Instagram to promote his work, as recognized by his colleagues in the union in Venezuela.

He accumulated more than 350,000 followers, many curious to see the "miracles" that he worked in the mouths of his clients.

As if he were a rock star, he would upload videos of his tours in Latin America, the United States or Europe to give lectures.

He traveled first class, wearing tailored suits and large watches inlaid with gold and sapphire.

He was the image of triumph, a heartthrob who broke hearts and created beauty.

The new appearance social network was his best showcase.

The dentist Víctor Sánchez during the 42nd Congress of Dentistry of Venezuela, in 2016, in Valencia.

Durán says that he had only been in Spain for a year when the famous dentist made him an offer to be partners, in October 2018. The young man made a living in a mobile phone store while he waited for the slow bureaucracy of the Ministry of Education to approve his Venezuelan title and work on his own. He saw on Instagram that the star dentist was in Spain to give a conference at a business hotel in the capital, the Exe de Plaza de Castilla. He signed up for the two-day event and then continued with his chores. Weeks later, he received an unexpected call with the proposal and thought he was dreaming. Sánchez wanted to open a branch in Madrid and offered a stake to him, a young beginner. At a meeting in a luxurious apartment in the Salamanca district, they agreed on the terms. Durán would contribute 50.000 euros in exchange for 5% of the Madrid franchise.

It was big business, the young apprentice thought. He borrowed money from his uncle, an agricultural businessman in Venezuela, whom he convinced of the opportunity ahead of him to succeed in Spain. Sánchez charged 20,000 euros for each smile design. Durán would receive his corresponding fee, 1,000 euros per client. The fledgling dentist was sure that Sánchez would soon become popular with Madrid's elite, just as he was in Caracas. He would recoup his investment and make his fortune hand in hand with a crack in dentistry.

Sánchez was in Madrid for political reasons.

He fled Chavista Venezuela through the sidewalks of the border with Colombia in October 2017. His brother Luis, a prosecutor, had just been imprisoned by the regime.

According to the independent media Armando.info, the government of Nicolás Maduro arrested the prosecutor because he was investigating the interests of powerful Chavistas.

When the regime announced the arrest, information appeared in the Venezuelan media accusing the dentist brother of using his clinic in Caracas to launder money.

Sánchez had to start from scratch abroad, but that did not intimidate him.

He had grandiose plans: to replicate his success in Venezuela on an international scale with a network of clinics.

He had already opened one in Bogotá and wanted to continue expanding in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Spain.

Strange companies

Durán was so excited that his alarms did not go off immediately with some suspicious details.

Sánchez had already rented a place in Madrid but it was not in an expensive area of ​​the capital.

It was an 86-square-meter commercial ground floor on 9 Lyon Street, in a neighborhood of the Moratalaz district, off the M-30.

Next to it, a grocery store: “Bazaar alimentation, dried fruits”.

But the secondary location could be offset by a splendid image.

The clinic, called Dental Clone, had in its window the logo, the drawing of a diamond, and the English word

luxury

.

Andrés Durán, on Wednesday in front of the Dental Clone clinic, in Madrid.Víctor Sainz

Another reason for caution was the strange company of Sánchez. The dentist, who was 37 years old at the time, was accompanied by an alleged marketing expert, Oliver Rosales, 39. He was the author of a self-help book,

Success has no age

and had been the presenter of a program on Globovisión, a television channel Venezuelan. He spoke with the solemnity of a sensei and Sanchez seemed subject to his will. At the clinic, he conducted strange rituals in which he offered sweets and jelly beans to a statuette. When the young Durán asked Sánchez about this strange behavior, the famous dentist asked him not to question his friend, of whom he spoke as if he were a divinity: “In this earthly world you will not understand who Oliver is. He came to give us a sign. "

Sweets around a statuette in the Dental Clone clinic in Madrid of the Venezuelan dentist Víctor Sánchez.

The plan to mix with the Madrid jet set to attract clients did not work either, despite the fact that Sánchez and Rosales had a very high lifestyle.

They bought designer suits from El Corte Inglés and a Mercedes GLA 200. They often ate at posh restaurants like Amazónico or Ramses, near the Retiro.

After dinner, they used to order a bottle of Johnnie Walker black label whiskey.

The nightly accounts were around 1,000 euros.

They met some second-tier Spanish actors to whom they offered free treatments at the clinic in the hope that they would recommend them to other guild colleagues.

But the plan did not work.

"They were people who were taken advantage of," says Durán.

But most worrying were the legal problems. Sánchez had not approved his title, nor had he registered. The rented premises did not meet the requirements of the legislation to avoid infections. Despite this, the clinic was open in 2018 and 2019. Clients passed through there, including several well-known Venezuelan soccer players whom Sánchez had already treated in his country, according to Durán. He says that they worked behind closed doors to avoid being discovered and that clients paid in black. A Venezuelan dentist registered in Madrid, who was hired to assist the star dentist and to run the day-to-day running of the clinic, corroborates these irregularities. The Council of Colleges of Dentists confirms that Sánchez is not registered in Spain, an essential requirement to practice the profession.

Sánchez traveled to Bogotá at the end of 2019 and did not return to Madrid. Durán did not see a single euro for those treatments. When he claimed his share, the famous dentist replied that they were clients he saw in Madrid, but that they corresponded to his portfolio from Colombia. Nor did he pay the agreed part to the assistant. Three students who signed up for his course at the clinic and who had paid 3,000 euros in advance each were left hanging. A patient who lives in Barcelona paid 20,000 euros in advance for a designer smile at the Madrid clinic, but the dentist kept the money, according to WhatsApp captures seen by this newspaper. Sánchez told the woman to go to the Bogotá clinic and when she got there she didn't find anyone.

He owes Durán a little more than 120,000 euros.

In addition to the 50,000 he contributed to the clinic, he also accuses Sánchez and Rosales of having appropriated the amount he gave them for a stake in a cafeteria that they intended to open in Madrid.

Sánchez has also left other unpaid debts totaling tens of thousands of euros.

Among others, it owes money to Banco Sabadell, Orange, Naturgy and the owner of the premises.

Dripping complaints

In December 2020, Durán discovered on Instagram an account called Dental Clone Víctimas. It had been created by the people who had collaborated with Sánchez on his projects in Colombia and the Dominican Republic. Since then, a trickle of complaints against the star dentist and his partner, the supposed spiritual guide, has not stopped. The account has more than 3,500 followers who have followed the revelations as if it were a Venezuelan soap opera. Sánchez, who is missing, recently posted a video of his allegation on his own Instagram account. Dressed in a designer suit and in front of a blue wall, he accuses Durán and the rest of being part of an extortion ring. He assures this newspaper that he has filed legal actions against them, but has refused to show those documents or any other evidence.

"Respect my right to confidentiality," says Sánchez.

"Of course I have evidence and a lot," he adds.

Durán and the people who accuse Sánchez in Latin America have shown this newspaper evidence such as contracts, transactions, conversations and claims from agencies seeking the payment of defaulters.

They have taken their cases to court.

In Colombia, a Sánchez worker who denounces harassment and fraud last week obtained a favorable ruling in one of her actions, ordering the dentist to remove denigrating posts on Instagram.

In the account created by the victims on that social network, testimonies from well-known Venezuelan dentists have appeared: "You went from being a world reference to being a clown," Rolando Núñez, who is director in Chicago of a multinational of the sector.

The reputational damage from these revelations has been so great that his colleagues in the guild believe that it is the end of the star dentist.

His biggest rival in the market for misses smiles, Dr. Maarten Vander Berg, thinks so.

“He had a promising career that he destroyed.

You will not be able to cover the sun with a finger ”, he assures.

If that is the case, ironically it will be the coincidence that Instagram was the medium where Sánchez's bubble was inflated and ended up being pricked.

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