A 13-year veteran of the NYPD has died following a cosmetic procedure gone wrong in Colombia, leaving behind a grieving family and renewed questions about the dangers of Brazilian Butt Lifts.
According to The New York Daily News, Detective Alicia Stone, 40, was found unresponsive in her hotel room in Cali on Thursday, October 23. She had undergone a BBL procedure days earlier, police sources confirmed.
Stone was rushed to Fundacion Valle del Lili hospital, where she went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 7:50 a.m.
Her husband, Michael Stone, said the news came as a devastating shock. “The doctor who called me from Colombia just called me and told me my wife had just passed away,” he told the outlet. “She didn’t even have any information to tell me when I was asking her…. Something just doesn’t add up.”
Family members spoke to Alicia the day before she died and said she seemed perfectly fine. Michael was stunned to learn she was staying in a hotel rather than a recovery center, raising more questions about the care she received. Authorities in Colombia are investigating, and the NYPD has confirmed her death, though it has not said whether an investigator was sent overseas.
Her passing underscores a wider concern: the growing trend of traveling abroad for BBLs, often at a fraction of the cost charged in the United States, but with far greater risks. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the procedure has one of the highest mortality rates of any cosmetic surgery. Complications like fat embolism, severe infection, and blood clots are far more common when surgeries are performed outside tightly regulated environments.
In hip-hop, BBLs have been both celebrated and criticized. Cardi B has admitted to undergoing unsafe procedures in underground clinics before going public with warnings. K. Michelle, who once had implants, has built an entire show, My Killer Body, around exposing the dangers of botched surgeries.
More recently, social media was flooded with speculation about rapper Saucy Santana after rumors surfaced that he was hospitalized following a botched BBL.
The risks are not just medical but also financial and emotional. Patients who travel abroad often return with serious infections or complications that require emergency care, erasing any cost savings and sometimes leaving permanent damage. Studies show that worldwide, one in every 3,448 patients dies from a BBL procedure—an alarming rate compared to other cosmetic surgeries.
For Stone and his family, those statistics have now become personal. He says he wants answers and plans to request an independent autopsy when Alicia’s body is returned to the United States. “To be called Thursday and told that she passed away, that is just shocking and hurtful,” he said. “I don’t have the facts, and that’s what I need—the facts of what happened.”