The Lebanese food influencer known as 'Dr Food' has been sentenced to life in prison with hard labour for drug smuggling. He had over five million followers on social media. This is reported by infohub.kz.
According to the court decision, influencer Georges Hanna Dib was convicted under Lebanon's narcotics law. Judge Elie al-Helou sentenced him to life imprisonment with hard labour and fined him 120 million Lebanese pounds ($1,341).
The case stems from a 2024 drug bust involving 820kg (1,800 pounds) of hashish hidden in cake packaging. The drugs were produced in Baalbek and prepared for international shipment via Turkiye.
Dib is not a real doctor but has more than five million followers on TikTok. He is believed to be out of the country, so the verdict was delivered in absentia and he was stripped of his civil rights. In February last year, a Mount Lebanon investigative judge charged him with 'manufacturing, trafficking, and smuggling drugs abroad'.
After the sentencing, Dr Food's Instagram page showed no reaction. Instead, the influencer posted a giveaway for his food product brand, promising $100 to those who posted about it on TikTok and received 100,000 views. His last post was on March 27 from Beirut's waterfront, where he was buying food for displaced Lebanese.
Notably, Lebanon's Bekaa Valley is notorious for hashish production. Last November, Lebanese police arrested Noah Zaiter, a 48-year-old drug trafficker known as the 'Lebanese Pablo Escobar'. He was sentenced to four months in prison in February.