Three pals have ended up in hot water after a plot to kidnap another friend backfired when they got the wrong person.

Eyewitnesses reported to police that three armed men abducted a young man on the beach in Uchkuevka in Sevastopol in Crimea on 12th July.

Police were called when men with objects similar to a machine gun and a pistol were seen kidnapping a person who was lying on the beach, and taking him to a dark coloured Audi where the third man was waiting as a getaway driver.

The video shot by a passerby shows the beaches packed with families with young children as the armed gunmen dragged their victim to the car.

The police reacted quickly and tracked down and arrested the perpetrators and inside they found three men aged between 38 and 47 with the victim. They said that they rented a car for a prank.

But after the kidnapping, they realised they had mistaken their friend for someone similar.

According to the news website Life, the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation of Russia in Sevastopol, commented: “The crime is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they managed to persuade the victim into the car without using physical force, and they did not threaten him.

“During the inspection of the car, police officers found and seized objects visually similar to weapons. The seized items were sent for examination.”

Artemy Dobrykh wrote on social networks: “It doesn’t look like filming for a movie. It doesn’t even look like a real case. If this is TikTok, then everyone deserves six months in custody. And compensation for the victim. It all happened on the beach where there’s a public place, where were the patrols?”

The three pranksters are to be punished according to Russia’s Administrative Code for “Petty Hooliganism” which will involve a considerably lesser punishment than if they were to be prosecuted for kidnapping.