FRANKFURT – All of Germany was bamboozled Thursday by a bizarre scheme that tricked the country's main wire service into reporting an attempted suicide bombing in a California town – an attack supposedly perpetrated by a non-existent rap group called the "Berlin Boys."

How they did it: A team of publicity seeking hoaxers fooled Germany’s wire service into reporting on a fake suicide bombing in California allegedly perpetrated by German rappers.

1. First the tricksters set up a website for a fake California city called Bluewater and a fake TV station there. On the websites, they listed California telephone numbers – but those went directly to the hoaxsters’ German Skype accounts. They also created a Wikipedia article that confirmed the existence of the station.

2. A hysterical “reporter” from the fake TV station called German newsrooms reporting a suicide attacks, and directed them to the fake websites. German journalists called the phone numbers for “officials” listed on the sites to confirm the stories. Of course, those numbers connected straight to the hoaxsters.

3. The DPA – the German equivalent of the Associated Press – put the story up on its newswire. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office was quickly flooded with phone calls from German reporters trying to confirm the suicide bombing.

4. Within 30 minutes, the DPA took down their story. But the damage was done. Later, the hoaxsters sent out a press release announcing what they did.

The work of German filmmakers peddling a satirical movie called Short Cut to Hollywood, the elaborate hoax involved at least two faked websites, a faked Wikipedia entry and California phone numbers for "public safety" officials that were actually being answered by hoaxsters in Germany using Skype.

The hoax has transfixed this country. It prompted a 1,000-word tome on the website of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s most respected newspaper, and even a press conference denouncing the incident by the DPA – the German wire service responsible for first disseminating the news about the "attack."

The hoax's effect was felt thousands of miles away, as a flood of concerned phone calls from Germany jammed the switchboards at the San Bernardino County Sheriff's office, which has jurisdiction over the supposed bombing site in California.

"This is frustrating and a waste of our resources," said office spokesman Arden Wiltshire, who was awakened at 5 a.m. Thursday to try and sort out the crisis. Wiltshire worries that dispatchers could have missed important calls to deal with the Germans.

"We’re sorry for what happened; we, too, were victimized," said Justus Demmer, a DPA spokesman. "What we have learned today is if there's someone committed to betray you, it's very hard to stop it."

The hoax began Thursday when a man identifying himself as California TV journalist Rainer Petersen called Germany's largest news services to report the rap group’s arrest. He directed journalists to websites for "KVPK News" and the "City of Bluewater."

The Bluewater website listed California telephone numbers for city services, while the KVPK site hosted faux English-language TV news reports about the bombing.

But Bluewater isn't a city at all: It's a large unincorporated swath of land straddling the Arizona-California state line, with the California side patrolled by San Bernardino County's deputies. The Berlin Boys don't exist in real life, and neither does KVPK.

That didn't stop the DPA from running the headline: "Attack in Small California Town."

That’s when the trickle of calls to the Sheriff's office became a barrage, prompting dispatchers to wake Wiltshire – something only done for a major crisis, like the shooting of an officer.

The DPA corrected the report about half an hour later, but by then it was too late. The assault on dispatchers paralyzed officials through the night, even after the pranksters sent out a press release that made it clear the whole stunt was an elaborate hoax to promote a short film.

"For five months we thought about how we can bring out our black-humor satire, Short Cut to Hollywood," the release said in German.

A person who answered a phone number with a California area code listed on the press release told Wired.com, "I no speak English."

But once spoken to in German, he declined to identify himself . "I can't help you." He did say he was in Berlin and was using Skype – a VOIP service that allows people to register and use local U.S. phone numbers even when they are in other countries.

An e-mail to an address listed on the release went unanswered.

The whole episode has been embarrassing for the German media, bemusing to law enforcement and simply amusing to the residents where the suicide bombing supposedly occurred. But it’s been a boon for Short Cut to Hollywood, which is supposed to come out in German theaters later this month.

By Friday, the German media were filled with reports mourning the DPA's failings but lauding the audacity of Jan Henrik Stahlberg, the filmmaker who is widely thought to be behind the stunt.

“This has never happened to German media before,” fretted the DPA’s Demmer. “It should never have happened.”

On the California-Arizona border, locals were blissfully unaware of the hoax that involved their sparsely populated resort area, whose greatest claim to fame is a nearby casino.

Hardly anyone lives on the California side of Bluewater, says Dorothy Randall, who runs the Bermuda Palms RV Park in Earp. There’s no city hall or council. The area is called Bluewater by locals, so it wouldn’t make sense for a suicide bombing to have occurred in town anyway, because there really is no town to begin with, Randall said.

“There’s not much here,” she said.

Top image: The banner on the fake website for the city of Bluewater.