Have you ever doubt your doctor’s knowledge and abilities? Apparently anyone having the least knowledge about performing an abortion surgery can also do it. At least that is what a 48-year-old woman thought when botching abortions while pretending to be a doctor at Clinica Medica de la Mujer in Chula Vista.

Fortunately, Bertha Pinedo Bugarin’s secret was revealed after a year-long investigation by the Chula Vista Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. On Thursday, she was arrested and charged with 10 felony counts of practicing medicine without a license and grand theft.

According to prosecutors, Bugarin operated six clinics in Southern California that provided abortions. She also performed abortions on several women at Clinica Medica de la Mujer (which she owned) in February and March for as much as $500 for an abortion.

Nine women identified Bugarin as the person performing the abortions, one of them suffering severe complications. She had to be hospitalized three times and gave birth prematurely to a baby that lived for only three hours. Another woman had to come back at the clinic for a second intervention because the first wasn’t successful, prosecutors said.

District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis released a statement saying Bugarin “preyed on women in the Hispanic community. By passing herself as a doctor, she put these women’s lives in serious danger,” the Associated Press quoted her.

“The women were subjected to pain and risk of great bodily injury because of Bugarin’s lack of medical training,” Chula Vista Police Chief Rick Emerson, who conducted the investigation, said.

Bugarin was being held on $500,000 bail and was scheduled to be arraigned July 2. If convicted, she faces more than nine years in prison.