INSIDE EDITION caught up with the young men behind a prank that had an entire beach full of people awestruck over what they believed to be a buried treasure of gold.
A crowd on Venice Beach, California got the shock of their lives—a treasure chest full of gold coins was found. Or was it?
It turns out it was all a prank pulled off by four buddies—Nick Garrett, Trent Hales, Johnny Murdock, and Louis Jenkins.
They wanted to pull off a prank of epic proportions, so they bought an old trunk for $100, loaded it on one of their cars—and drove 12 hours from Utah to Venice Beach, where they filled it with chocolate that looked like gold coins, and buried it in the sand at 2:00 in the morning.
It took 3 hours of digging to bury it 6-feet under the sand.
"I was definitely sore and we weren't happy about digging the next day," said Jenkins.
That's right—they came back to dig it up the very next day during Memorial Day weekend, when the beach was packed.
It wasn't long before a huge crowd gathered.
"Everybody was kind of fighting for elbow room. Everyone wanted to see it real bad," said Murdock.
At one point, the crowd—eager with anticipation—started getting rowdy.
"People were saying, 'This better not be a prank guys, or we'll be pissed,'" said Garrett.
"You were worried about the crowd turning on you?" asked INSIDE EDITION's Paul Boyd.
"Yeah, there were some big people in there," replied Jenkins.
Finally, the big moment came.
"I just started screaming and jumping up and down and fist-pumping. I was just trying to sell it as much as I could," said Murdock.
The crowd descended, thinking the gold coins were for real.
It wasn't long before the crowd realized it wasn't gold—it was chocolate. And then, it was the kids that went wild.
It isn't everyday someone punks a whole beach.
