Two foreign nationals have been charged with a yearslong swatting conspiracy targeting U.S. lawmakers and others, the Department of Justice announced.
Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, obtained the personal information and home addresses for more than 100 victims and, between December 2020 and January of this year, led “swatting” attacks in which they falsely reported emergencies to provoke a police response, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
The targets included 61 “official victims,” including members of Congress, Cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior officials of federal law enforcement agencies and state officials, the indictment states.
“Swatting is not a victimless prank — it endangers real people, wastes precious police resources and inflicts significant emotional trauma,” Matthew M. Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement announcing the charges. “We will use every tool at our disposal to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable, no matter where they might be.”
The indictment states Szabo and Radovanovic also called in bomb threats against four businesses, four religious institutions and a university. Szabo allegedly called a crisis intervention hotline on or about Jan. 17, 2021, threatening to detonate explosives at the Capitol and kill the president-elect. Roughly a year later, on Jan. 6, 2022, Szabo threatened to “commit mass murder and detonate explosives” at the Capitol in posts on a public internet forum, according to the indictment.
Szabo and Radovanovic are each charged with one count of conspiracy, 29 counts of threats and false information regarding explosives, and four counts of transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce.
Some lawmakers in Congress have spoken out publicly in the past about being the target of various swatting attempts.
“I was just swatted. This is like the 8th time. On Christmas with my family here. My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn’t have to deal with this,” Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X on Dec. 25.
The indictment does not reveal the names of the people allegedly targeted by Szabo and Radovanovic.
In a conversation between the two, according to the indictment, Szabo allegedly said they should target both U.S. political parties because “we are not on any side.”
The post Foreign nationals charged with ‘swatting’ members of Congress appeared first on Roll Call.
