Alex McCormick, James Wallman and Lewis Ellis claimed they were off for a spot of dolphin watching after clubbing in Ayia Napa all night and boarded a boat "ready for a party."
It wasn't until they stepped off the boat, checked in on Facebook that they saw they were in Syria — so the story goes in many of the online articles — and apparently, they were met by Russian military police in Tartus, around 50 miles from Homs, in Syria.
"Point is, we were bored, we like pranking, so we thought let's make our next victims the British media, because they're publishing stuff without fact checking. We made the whole story up," Ellis told Sputnik.
"They wanted that story — and they just published it."
The fake story of the three lads ending up in Syria was published on multiple tabloid websites over the course of the day and ran on television news broadcasts in Britain.
Meanwhile Alex McCormick, the second of the three pranksters, admitted to Sputnik that when he spoke to the media outlets that had spotted the pictures — they continued with the prank and re-told journalists the fake story of how they ended up in Syria.
It went a bit like this: "The last club closed at 7:30 a.m. so we just powered through to our 9:00 a.m. boat trip and ended up blagging our way onto the wrong boat," Ellis told the London tabloid, Mirror Online.
"Everyone was foreign and it was pretty much half way out from the island when we asked 'how come we're so far away from land?' "
So Far Away From Syria, More Like — And The Truth
"They didn't doubt it — I thought the story was so unbelievable that it wouldn't be believed. It was so obviously a prank, we were surprised they bought it," McCormick told Sputnik.
"We're not stupid people," McCormick is keen to express.
"Okay we're pranksters but we have our heads screwed on. We were chilling and talking about world affairs, politics and the media."
"I admit, we had fun doing it but we didn't think it would go viral. My point is that people shouldn't be looking at this — they should be looking at what's really going on in the world, not three guys who say they got drunk and ended up in Syria. I didn't expect it to go as big as it has."
McCormick claims he's a "deeply political person," and is "fed up with people just being obsessed with 'The Only Way is Essex' and 'Keeping up with the Kardashians.' "
"People should be obsessed with their own lives. The entire western world is obsessed with the next new thing; it is all consumerism and indulgence and that will get us nowhere."
Pretty much like the made-up boat they boarded… going nowhere.
