A school dropout who allegedly operated on dozens of people while posing as a British plastic surgeon has reportedly fled to Hong Kong in a bid to avoid jail.

A court in Bucharest, Romania, had sentenced phoney medic Matteo Politi to three years and 10 months in prison in March for fraud and intellectual forgery.

During his trial, the Italian national was accused of operating on 28 people in five private clinics despite having no medical qualifications.

Politi – the court heard – had adopted the fake identity of a British plastic surgeon named Matthew Mode.

He even ran a social media page under that name, where he posted photos and videos of himself performing operations and posed as breast augmentation expert.

According to his fake CV, he had studied at UPMC Shadyside and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, both in the USA.

He claimed he had worked as a cosmetic surgeon in the UK, Italy, and Spain, but, in reality, he had not even completed his school sixth form.

He had been issued with a licence by the Public Health Directorate of Bucharest using a fake diploma from the University of Prishtina Faculty of Medicine in Kosovo.

His sentence came after he had practised medicine illegally for more than 15 years, seeing hundreds of patients.

Italian media report how he was caught in 2019, when nurses assisting him during an operation became suspicious.

The routine breast implant replacement was supposed to take just an hour. However, Politi took four hours to complete the procedure.

He was already on the run from his home country after a traffic warden complained about the cosmetic procedure he had performed on her in 2010.

After getting off with a suspended sentence for fraud, he had moved to the Romanian capital so he could carry on operating on people.

Italian media now report that he has gone on the run to Hong Kong to avoid prison and start a new life.

Italy and Hong Kong are not believed to have an extradition treaty.