A Kenyan journalist attached to Hot 96 FM, Teddy Otieno has been exposed for a false viral tweet he made on Monday about a student who ate from KFC for a whole year without paying, before he was caught.
According to Business Insider, a publication in South Africa, neither the police nor the prosecutors know anything about the incident.
However, the journalist still maintains that he stands by his tweet and that he had searched prior to tweeting.
"[I] got it from a contact in KwaZulu Natal," he said, and characterised KFC's denial as "a PR stunt", he told the publication.
The publication also reports that the police learnt about the arrest they had allegedly made on social media.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson in KwaZulu-Natal, Natasha Karra, confirmed that no arrests had been made.
Hot 96 FM station manager, Cynthia Mwangi also stated that Otieno did not tweet on behalf of the radio station.
"He tweets in his personal capacity and has nothing to do with us," she stated.
Otieno's tweet went viral internationally with publications such as Daily Mail and American television network CBS covering the story.
On Twitter, KFC South Africa stated that the story was fake adding that the eatery couldn't have been duped for that long.
"We haven’t kept the secret recipe ‘secret’ for this long, only to be duped by a student," read part of the tweet.
