French breast implant boss wanted by Interpol

The founder of a French firm at the centre of a global breast implants scare is wanted by Costa Rica, according to a notice posted on the website of the international police agency Interpol.

Jean-Claude Mas, who started the now defunct Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) in 1991, has disappeared from public view as anxiety about the potential health effects of his implant products has spread around the globe.

A "red notice" posted by Interpol says the 72-year-old is wanted for "life and health" offences by Costa Rica. It shows two police mugshot pictures of the bald and bearded man smiling in a white sports shirt and glasses.

The small company, which shut its doors in 2010 after its implants were ordered off the market, has been thrust into the spotlight after the French government recommended that tens of thousands of women in France with PIP implants have them removed by their surgeons as a precaution.

The implants have been found to have had abnormal rupture rates, although the French government and public health experts said on Friday there was no evidence of increased cancer risk in PIP implants versus other brands.

Up to 90 percent of PIP's sales went abroad, mostly to Latin America and Western Europe.

Officials at Lyon-based Interpol were not immediately available to give further details or say when the alert, which requests member states to arrest him, was made.

The lawyer for the company told Reuters earlier on Friday that neither Mas nor the company's chief financial officer Claude Couty had fled to South America or Luxembourg.

"They are and will stay in the Var region (of France)," Yves Haddad said, adding that his client would not publicly comment on the affair. Haddad said silence was out of "decency and discretion."