Two foreign men are charged with ‘swatting’ U.S. elected officials and private citizens

Two foreign nationals have been charged with making hoax bomb threats and false emergency reports targeting dozens of American citizens, including state and federal officials in Georgia and around the nation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has charged Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, with 34 felonies related to dozens of hoax calls and threats made over several years.

According to the federal indictment, which was unsealed Wednesday, the conspirators collected personal information, including home addresses, for about 40 private citizens and 61 public officials and carried out “swatting” attacks by calling in fake emergencies, in order to bring an armed police response to a home, school or other location where no actual emergency existed.

In Georgia, at least four state senators , Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene were targeted in December with fake 911 calls to their homes.

“I want to thank our law enforcement personnel for their diligent and efficient work to bring these criminals to justice. Criminal acts like swatting will not be tolerated, and I am glad to see that these offenders have been caught, will be prosecuted and justice will be served,” Jones said in a statement to the AJC.

Republican state Sen. Clint Dixon was at his Buford home Christmas night when nine police officers arrived, after a caller said he had killed his wife and was holding someone else hostage. He was then swatted a second time, with one of the men saying Dixon had shot a female victim and was preparing to detonate a bomb in the house, Dixon said.

Also on Christmas Day last year, police responded to an alleged home invasion at Republican state Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick’s house in Marietta. In Rome, Greene was home when someone made a false call to police there.

“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,” Greene wrote on X, at the time.

Other victims included members of Congress, cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior official of federal law enforcement agencies, and state officials. The indictment also said that bomb threats were called in against houses of worship, a university, and several businesses.

Democratic state Sen. Kim Jackson was at home in Stone Mountain the day after Christmas when police jumped over her fence. Officers said a man called and used Jackson’s home address as the spot where a woman was being held hostage.

Jackson said she felt “surprisingly relieved” to know that the callers who harassed her had been identified and apprehended.

“I’ve been looking over my shoulder for a boogeyman since December, and now I don’t have to do that,” she said.

The fact that the suspects are not from Georgia, or even the U.S., is strange, she said. But at least now she knows.

“It could have been a neighbor. I had no context for even beginning to know where to look,” she said. “Now, I don’t have to worry about this person popping up and swatting me again, or doing something even more violent.”

Investigators allege the two men carried out their campaign of hoax calls from December 2020 to January 2024, but the indictment does not indicate a possible motive. The two men communicated via online chat groups “organized and moderated by Szabo,” using internet aliases including “Plank” and “Cypher” for Szabo and “Thuggin” and “XDR” for Radovanovic, court records said.

The men reportedly targeted synagogues and churches and posted a bomb threat on an internet forum targeting the U.S. Capitol on the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, but investigators did not indicate the motive was political.

Amid a spate of swatting calls targeting political figures last Christmas, Szabo allegedly told Radovanovic they needed to target both Republican and Democratic politicians because “we are not on any side.”

A representative federal prosecutors would not say whether the men have been arrested. However, court records suggest they are in custody.

“Swatting is not a victimless prank — it endangers real people, wastes precious police resources, and inflicts significant emotional trauma,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said, in a news release . “We will use every tool at our disposal to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable, no matter where they might be.”

The investigation was conducted by the Secret Service, the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police.

Although the men have been charged with federal crimes, their alleged actions prompted legislation on the state level.

During this year’s legislative session, Dixon introduced Senate Bill 421 , which increase penalties for people who transmit false threats and emergency reports. The bill, which received unanimous support in the Senate and near-total support in the House, was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp and went into effect in July.

The crimes charged to the men carry possible maximum penalties of between five and 10 years in prison.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

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