Sawt Falasteen - Romanian, Serbian men charged with 'swatting' US officials

Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, face one count of conspiracy and multiple counts of making threats regarding explosives and transmitting threats.

"Swatting" takes its name from the heavily armed SWAT teams dispatched to tackle emergencies in the United States. The law enforcement response is often prompted by a caller who reports a false violent crime at a home.

Szabo and Radovanovic, as well as other unidentified conspirators, are accused in an indictment unsealed on Wednesday of perpetrating dozens of "swatting" attacks between December 2020 and January of this year.

The targets included 40 private citizens, 61 official victims, including members of Congress, cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior officials of federal law enforcement agencies and state officials, the Justice Department said.

The calls to law enforcement included false claims of homicides, suicides, kidnappings and mass shootings.

Szabo and Radovanovic are also alleged to have made bomb threats against four businesses, four religious institutions and one university.

"Swatting is not a victimless prank -- it endangers real people, wastes precious police resources, and inflicts significant emotional trauma," US Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said in a statement. "We will use every tool at our disposal to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable, no matter where they might be."

According to a source with knowledge of the case, Szabo is in custody.

The indictment alleges that Szabo was the organizer and moderator of chat groups where the conspirators communicated with one another, and that he used the monikers "Jonah," "Plank," "Rambler," and "War Lord," among others.

Radovanovic's monikers included "XBD31," "Angus" and "Thuggin."

The FBI tracked about 600 "swatting" incidents in the country last year.

Those targeted have included Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the election subversion case against Donald Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against the former president, and Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene.

According to the indictment, Szabo told Radovanovic in December 2023 that they "should direct their swatting activity against victims from both US political parties because 'we are not on any side.'"

E.Qaddoumi--SF-PST