Lebanese food influencer gets life sentence in hashish smuggling case
Georges Hanna Dib, known online as Dr Food, was sentenced over a 2024 bust involving 820kg of hashish hidden in cake packaging.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
A Lebanese court has sentenced food influencer Georges Hanna Dib, known online as Dr Food, to life in prison with hard labour in a drug smuggling case, Al Jazeera reported. The case centers on hashish allegedly concealed in cake packaging and moved from eastern Lebanon through Turkiye for international shipment.
Judge Elie al-Helou also fined Dib 120 million Lebanese pounds, about $1,341, according to Al Jazeera. Dib and other Lebanese and Syrian nationals were sentenced under Lebanon’s Narcotics Law, which covers the manufacture of banned drugs, according to reports cited by the broadcaster.
The sentencing followed a 2024 bust in which authorities found 820kg, or about 1,800 pounds, of hashish hidden in packaging for cakes made in Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon. Al Jazeera reported that Dib and others were sentenced in their absence and stripped of their civil rights.
Dib is believed to be outside Lebanon, according to Al Jazeera. Despite using the name Dr Food, he is not a doctor, the broadcaster reported. He has more than five million followers on TikTok and built a public profile around food content and a food product brand.
Earlier charges
A Mount Lebanon investigative judge had recommended in February 2025 that Dib receive a life sentence with hard labour after charging him with “manufacturing, trafficking, and smuggling drugs abroad,” Al Jazeera reported. The court’s latest decision imposed that sentence.
The broadcaster said the case involved hashish reportedly placed inside cake packaging produced in Baalbek before being transported to Turkiye and then sent to other countries. The report did not state where Dib is now or whether he has commented through lawyers.
On Sunday, Dib’s Instagram page did not address the court case or the sentencing, according to Al Jazeera. Instead, the account shared a giveaway connected to his food product brand, offering $100 to people who received a message, posted it on TikTok and reached 100,000 views.
In another Instagram video cited by Al Jazeera, Dib appeared to film himself in a car without mentioning the court decision. The broadcaster said his last Instagram story had been posted on March 27 from Beirut’s waterfront, where he asked displaced Lebanese people what foods they missed and ordered meals for them from well-known Lebanese food chains.
Bekaa drug trade context
Al Jazeera described Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as known for hashish production. Baalbek, where the cake packaging was reportedly produced, is located in that region.
The sentencing also follows another Lebanese drug case cited by Al Jazeera. Police arrested Noah Zaiter, a 48-year-old trafficker known as the Lebanese Pablo Escobar, last November, and he was sentenced in February to four months in prison, the broadcaster reported.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.