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Prescription for trouble

Updated on: 19 November,2023 07:59 AM IST  |  South Africa
A Correspondent |

27-year-old arrested for posing as a doctor on social media

Prescription for trouble

Matthew Lani posed as a doctor and shared medical advice in various TikTok videos (Pics/Reddit)

Matthew Lani, a young South African man with over 3,00,000 followers on TikTok, was recently arrested for allegedly posing as a doctor and sharing medical advice without having any medical experience. Twenty-seven-year-old Matthew Bogani Lani rose to internet fame when he started claiming that he was one of the youngest doctors in South Africa. He often told his followers that he was somewhat of a wunderkind, skipping several high-school grades entirely to graduate at age 16, before enrolling at Wits University to study medicine.



He often filmed himself patrolling through hospitals dressed in white and wearing a stethoscope around his neck, claiming to be on his way to see patients and even dishing out medical advice to his followers, or selling them medication. He wouldn’t be the first doctor to do this in order to build an online following, but the problem was that Lani wasn’t a doctor at all, he just posed as one. Last month, Matthew Lani was arrested inside the Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg


He was wearing a hoodie and had a surgical mask over his face, with a stethoscope around his neck. This was allegedly not his first time masquerading as a doctor in the hospital for his online audience, as evidenced by some of his TikTok videos, but it was the first time he was caught. The young social media influencer had apparently been on the run from the law for a few weeks, following growing concern that his medical career was fake. 

South African publication Independent Online reported that suspicions regarding his career reached a boiling point a few weeks back when he posted a video referring to pancreatic cancer as “pantric” cancer. TikTok eventually banned his account after the University of Witwatersrand and the Health Professions Council of South Africa denied having ever had Matthew Lani as a student or member.

Trouble in Paw-radise

A Polish cat has been taken off Google after becoming too famous

Pic/Instagram
Pic/Instagram

A fat cat who became a Polish town’s top-rated attraction has been removed from Google, taken off the streets and put on a diet after welcoming too many generous visitors. The podgy black and white stray named Gacek shot to global fame after scoring a Google ranking of five from reviewers. Dubbed “the King of Kaszubska” after the name of the street he lived on in the city of Szczecin, Gacek was ranked on Google higher than the city’s more traditional tourist hotspots.But his listing has now been removed from Google after locals expressed concerns over his health, stopping sightseers from flocking to the town to feed him.

Shred your heart out

Tearing up wedding photos after a failed marriage isn’t as easy as it sounds in China, a country where it’s customary to immortalise wedding stills on acrylic canvases. A new company started by a man called Liu specialises in shredding photographs, helping divorced clients put their past behind them.

What’s buzzing?


Pic/Instagram

A mysterious humming sound has been keeping residents of a Northern Ireland city awake at night, and officials said they have yet to determine its source. The sound, described as a humming or buzzing noise, has been reported most frequently between 10 pm and midnight in the city of Omagh.

Rapunzel’s wig


Pic/Instagram

A Nigerian woman named Helen Williams spent 11 days creating a 1,152-foot, 5-inch long handmade wig that was certified as the longest in the world. Guinness World Records confirmed that the professional wigmaker earned the title for the world’s longest handmade wig with her impressively long faux-locks.

Beetle buzz

A beetle with bizarre, bottle opener-shaped genitalia was discovered by researchers in Denmark and named after the nation’s favourite brews—Carlsberg, which has supoorted independent research for many years. The Loncovilius Carlsbergi is a species whose remarkably-shaped penis is found at the back of its body.

Pie-stealing hack

A hungry cook has pizzamongers on edge after revealing a sneaky way to steal a piece of a customer’s pie. He detailed his slice-swiping method in a TikTok video with over 3.4 million views. The food tutorial shows TikTok user Jay Ryan swiping a strip out of the middle of a pizza, before seamlessly merging the remaining halves back together to seem like nothing is amiss.

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