SAN DIEGO — A doctor in Carmel Valley was charged with mail fraud Thursday in connection with selling what he described as a “miracle cure” for COVID-19, federal prosecutors said.

FBI agents served a search warrant Thursday morning at Skinny Beach Med Spa on Carmel Mountain Road, where Dr. Jennings Ryan Staley worked as a licensed physician, according to a news release. The business offered services like Botox, hair removal and fat transfer, the criminal complaint alleged.

Agents executed the warrant after an investigation found that Skinny Beach started sending emails advertising “COVID-19 treatment packs” in late March, according to the criminal complaint. The “concierge medicine experience” was offered at $3,995 for a family of four. It included hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, “anti-anxiety treatments to help you avoid panic if needed and help you sleep” and access to Staley.

In a recorded call with an undercover agent posing as a would-be customer, Staley described the medication as “an amazing cure” and a “miracle cure” that would cure COVID-19 “100%.” He said if you take the medication and don’t have the disease, “you’re immune for at least six weeks.” He called it a “magic bullet.”

“It’s preventative and curative. It’s hard to believe, it’s almost too good to be true. But it’s a remarkable clinical phenomenon,” Staley stated. “I’ve never seen anything like this in medicine, just so you know. Really, I can’t think of anything. That, you’ve got a disease that literally disappears in hours.”

A week later, when the FBI interviewed Staley as part of an open investigation, agents asked him whether his practice had told patients that the treatments are a 100% cure for the virus. He said, “No, that would be foolish. We would never say anything like that.” He also told agents it was “not definitive” that the medication cures COVID-19.

According to the criminal complaint, Staley also offered the would-be customer Xanax as part of his “concierge package” and shipped the controlled substance without conducting a medical exam.

Staley allegedly claimed his broker was smuggling hydroxychloroquine from China to make his own pills and had concealed the shipment by describing it as sweet potato extract, according to the complaint. Shipping records confirmed a shipment of “yam extract” was scheduled to arrive within days.

The med spa was also selling antibody testing. Many antibody tests have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“We will not tolerate COVID-19 fraudsters who try to profit and take advantage of the pandemic fear to cheat, steal and harm others,” said U.S. Attorney Robert S. Brewer Jr.

“The sale of false cures, especially by a medical professional, will be vigorously investigated by the FBI,” said Omer Meisel, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office.

Staley is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Friday at 2 p.m. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.