It’s all over for fake Brazilian war photographer, Eduardo Martins, whose fraudulent career has come to an end after he was finally caught stealing other photographers’ work.

Martins’ now-deleted Instagram account showing a British surfer, who has never been to a conflict zone, Photoshopped into the thick of it. Source: BBC.

Martins – not his real name – managed to trick and be published by Getty, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Vice, BBC, Al Jazeera, and Zuma, and garner around 130,000 Instagram followers before his web of lies became untangled.

The photographer claimed to work as a UN photographer, covering conflicts in Iran, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

His ‘career’ remarkably lasted three years before he was caught. Martins began stealing photos in 2014 and sending them to media outlets. He’d flip the photos horizontally to avoid being picked up by plagiarism detection software.

Brazilian photographer Ignacio Aronovich discovered Martins’ dirty trick. He stole many pictures from a photographer named Daniel C Britt. Source: SBS.

Martins’ fake personal story also received publicity. He claimed to have been abused as a child, overcame leukaemia, and was a passionate surfer.

He stole the identity of a British surfer, whose images were posted online to serve as the profile. In some instances the British surfer was Photoshopped into photos from conflict zones.

‘Once in Iraq shooting a conflict, I stopped shooting to help a boy who was hit by a molotov cocktail, dropped the camera and helped get him out of the conflict area,’ Martins told Recount Magazine in October 2016. ‘In scenes like this, which are common in my work, I stop being a photographer and become a human being. I cannot be impartial in these moments.’ What a hero!

Obviously no one ever met Martins in person, and Skype sessions were plagued with ‘video errors’, preventing editors from seeing the man in real time. It’s unclear if the photographer was ever paid for his phony photos, which were available on Getty for US$575 but have since been deleted.

From the beginning Martins apparently provided tear sheets and references to reduce suspicion.

Yet he wasn’t never vetted accordingly by any publications. It’s the perfect crime in the online sphere, which has placed immense pressure on media to continuously upload fresh content and allowed Martins to slip through the cracks.

Natasha Ribeiro, a BBC Brasil contributor based in the Middle East, was contacted by Martins and became suspicious. She, nor none of the tight knit community of Brazilian reporters and photographers in the region, had ever met him – despite covering the same events.

The UN confirmed to BBC Brasil they hadn’t employed Martins, and groups he claim to work alongside denied any knowledge of the photographer.

Ignacio Aronovich is the photographer who noticed Martins’ technique of flipping photos, after he saw the shutter button appearing on the left side of cameras in pictures. Many photos were found to be stolen from US photographer Daniel Britt.

When Martins came under scrutiny in August, Brazilian photographer Fernando Costa Netto – who forged an online friendship with the fraud and planned to show ‘his photos’ in an exhibition – warned him that people were asking questions.

Martins vanished, deleting his Instagram account. He later told Costa Netto that he’s hiding out in good ol’ Australia, living in a van under the stars. Probably chasing waves. Or not.

Most of his fake work has been removed from the publications which published it.

Martins’ real identity will probably never be revealed, and one prankster had a good ride at the expense of many credible news outlets.

Like this article? Subscribe to ProCounter!