Three club reps have managed to trick media organisations worldwide into reporting their claim to have accidentally got on a boat to Syria after a night out in Cyprus.
The story was originally picked up by the Lad Bible and then the Daily Mirror, before spreading to other reputable news sites including the Mail, Express, ITV, US outlet Time and Australian site News.com.au.
The trio claimed to have boarded what they thought was a dolphin-watching boat after going clubbing in Ayia Napa. About 50 miles offshore, they said they realised they had made a mistake.
One of the three, Lewis Ellis from Manchester told the Mirror: ‘The last club closed at 7.30am so we just powered through to our 9am boat trip and ended up blagging our way on to the wrong boat.”
He said they had ended up being picked up by Russian military police in Tartus, just 50 miles from fierce fighting, and questioned before being released.
However, in conversations with friends on Facebook Ellis revealed that it had been a prank.
cept take one look at one LAAAADDDDD's Facebook page and what do we have here in the comments pic.twitter.com/m7Iq4ItYjJ
— Elena Cresci (@elenacresci) June 8, 2016
Another of the trio, Alex McCormick, later told BBC Newsbeat: “I made the entire story up ... I was just typing it out as I was going along because the Lad Bible contacted me.”
At the time of publication the Mirror and Express were all still hosting the stories uncorrected, while the Mail had updated its article and ITV had taken it down.
The story is far from the first time media organisations have been fooled by those claiming outlandish stories on social media. Earlier this year numerous outlets fell for a tall story on Twitter about a late night visit to buy a McDonald’s milkshake that “turned into a bit of a mission” .
