TikTok star Matthew Lani was arrested and charged with impersonating a doctor in a South African hospital. Lani was apprehended after hospital security contacted police.
Lani, who had over 300,000 followers on TikTok, was apprehended Sunday, Oct. 29, by Johannesburg Metropolitan police at Helen Joseph Hospital, BBC reported.
“He had previously entered the same facility to curate misleading content under the pretense that he was a qualified doctor,” the department of health said in a statement after his arrest.
When apprehended, Lani was wearing a hoodie and a surgical mask with a stethoscope around his neck. He requested to go to the bathroom where he attempted to escape through a window. When security officers realized he was gone, they called for reinforcements and he was re-captured.
Lani gained a huge following on TikTok by posting videos and memes offering medical advice.
TikTok banned Lani after real doctors reported his main account, forcing him to create a new account under the handle @dr.matthew8. He quickly gained over 50,000 followers, and he claimed to be a licensed physician.
Doctors on TikTok were suspicious of “Dr. Matthew Lani” due to his medical inexperience and glaring errors in TikTok videos. In one video, he reportedly used the phrase “pantric” cancer instead of “pancreatic” cancer.
According to the BBC, Lani told police that his real name was Dr Sanele Zingelwa and he was a second-year medical intern at the Tembisa Provincial Tertiary Hospital. The hospital has since filed charges against Lani for fraud, according to Insider.com.
