We had to amputate the leg, explains a doctor from one Slovenian hospital. That’s just one of the many unfortunate stories Slovenian vascular surgeons witness, when people operated by doctor Janez Zimmermann, who presents himself as a vascular surgeon, turn to them for help.

"A middle-aged man who had a month-long leg ulcer was assured by Janez Zimmermann that the cause of the problem were varicose veins. He removed them for him. He guaranteed that it would all heal nicely. Later he never scheduled a post-operative check up and the patient believed that all would truly be well. And well, it wasn’t. When he came for a check-up in my ambulance, the ulcer went deep to the bone. I diagnosed clogged arteries in the stomach. We made a bypass. We then sent the patient to a plastic surgeon, but he could do nothing to replace the lack of skin and muscles, and the bone was also inflamed. We had to cut off the leg," is how a Slovenian vascular surgeon describes what happened. He also dealt with a case in which Zimmermann previously damaged a nerve while performing surgery on a male, later assuring the patient that the "error" would heal itself.

Who is Janez Zimmermann? None of the 15 vascular surgeons know him; he has never presented himself to them, despite the fact that he has been performing surgeries for varicose veins for twenty years now in Slovenia, and most recently in Trieste. He lures healthy people, misleads them to think that he will heal their vascular problems, operates in inadequate conditions, and makes cuts that even disfigure young girls. He finds his patients at retirement homes, health spas, and specialized medical stores. He convinces them with the long waiting times in state hospitals and stressing the necessity for an operation. He extorts money and makes threats.