Okay, the whole fake professionals thing is getting out of hand now.
I was able to ignore Dr Lani all this time, but now more cons have been creeping out of the woodwork, which in my book is cause for alarm.
After being exposed as a bogus doctor, Matthew Lani has reportedly returned to social media, where he continues to dispense medical advice and peddle his weight loss pills.
This despite all the professional medical gatekeepers having disavowed him and him being the subject of an investigation by the SAPS.
Lani has continued to cry foul, insisting that he does indeed have a medical degree and is employed by government to work at public hospitals.
For those who didn’t know, this young man posted dozens of videos from Joburg hospitals – seldom without a stethoscope – apparently pretending to be a doctor, until he was exposed. But he is not the only one.
Another conman with delusions of grandeur has been playing doctor in the Pretoria area.
Using his real name Kingsley Chele, he would add the title “Dr” or use the made-up name Dr KJ Ncube to consult patients.
He also used social media to scam his victims, mostly women, out of money.
Unlike Lani, Chele was arrested, gave police the slip and is currently in the tjoekie after being re-arrested. If he wasn’t playing doctor, he would pretend to be a pharmacist and dispense prescription medication.
Needless to say, he was not just playing with the lives of people dependent on chronic medication, but also exploiting their desperation, lack of knowledge and shortage of money.
Meanwhile, he was driving a larney car that police have since confiscated.
Again, he wasn’t the only one to do this. Three fake pharmacists were arrested in KZN and Mpumalanga last year. They also took it upon themselves to sell genuine medication to people under the pretence that they knew what they were doing.
But one fake pharmacist really rode a social media wave that drew attention, causing her to be exposed as a con.
Nthabiseng Ramokolo lied both about having a degree from the University of Limpopo and about working for Dis-Chem.
Pretty and well-groomed, her social media pages are full of pictures of her in pharmacy uniform and there appears to be no reason to not take her at her word.
The university has since said they have no record of her, while Dis-Chem diplomatically stated that the information on her LinkedIn profile is “inaccurate”.
Fake qualifications are of course not unique to us. A Kenyan man has been exposed as a fake lawyer, of all things. Manipulating the online portal of the country’s law society, the man assumed the identity of a qualified lawyer, who ironically has been working for the government as a state attorney.
It takes some really big cojones to not only argue cases before judges, but to do so while impersonating a State prosecutor.
In fact, the man has been practising law successfully, winning all of the 26 cases he has defended!
This is an impressive feat, considering that he has absolutely no legal training.
There’s a chance that he will be arrested for identity theft, but it’s not clear whether he will dare to defend himself in court.
It’s not clear to what extent these people are educated.
But here’s the kicker with “Dr” Matthew Zingelwa-Lani.
Our Education Department says he doesn’t even have a matric certificate and at one point, he attended a specials needs school.
Besides the litany of accusations he faces, the actual Dr Zingelwa has also opened a case of identity theft against him.
But this is obviously a very lucrative little gig that he’s got going on, which is why he is back at it, unperturbed by having been found out.
One wonders why these people would craft such elaborate lies, especially in professions where there’s a very good chance they will be found out.
A desperate desire for attention and recognition? Social media fame and validation?
A combination of these things perhaps.
It strikes me that soon we will need a way of verifying the credentials of all our professional service providers, or risk the chance of being operated on by a fake surgeon.