Briton uses Facebook and Snapchat to fake photos for 'accidental Syria boat trip' prank
A British man has used Facebook and Snapchat photos to create a prank about "accidentally ending up in Syria" with his friends after boarding the wrong boat after a night out in Cyprus.
Lewis Ellis, a 25-year-old from Manchester, told the Daily Mirror that the post-clubbing dolphin-watching trip from Ayia Napa turned out to be a nightmare as he and his friends realised halfway they were on the way to Syria.
He claimed they were stopped in Tartus, Syria, by Russian military police just 50 miles from Homs, and escorted to their military base.
You May Also Like
"The last club closed at 7:30 a.m. so we just powered through to our 9 a.m. boat trip and ended up blagging our way onto the wrong boat," he said.
"We were wearing boardshorts, hungover, looking like we were ready for a boat party.
"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?'"
Ellis used Facebook and Snapchat pictures in his prank.
However, Ellis himself, on his Facebook profile, described the story as a "prank" in a comment under a post mocking news sites that covered the bizarre trip.
Mashable contacted Ellis for comment, who replied: "You would be clever to think it could be a prank."
He later admitted on Facebook that he'd "trolled the world":
In a further debunking of the story, the Marine Traffic site shows no traffic from Ayia Napa, Cyprus, to Tartus in Syria recently.
Ellis also quoted from a story noting that he “shares a name” with a prankster who swam in a swimming pool in Trafford shopping centre.
A video on his YouTube channel shows that he was that same prankster:
Johnny Lieu contributed reporting to this story.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
