WASHINGTON (AP) — An indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses two European men of conspiring to make false police emergency reports to harass and threaten members of Congress, senior U.S. government officials and dozens of other people.
Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, according to a federal indictment, targeted at least 100 people with “beat-ups” to provoke an aggressive police response at the victims’ homes.
According to the indictment, the calls also included threats of mass shootings at New York synagogues and detonating explosives at the U.S. Capitol and university. A federal grand jury in Washington DC handed up the indictment last Thursday.
Online court records in Washington do not say whether Szabo or Radovanovic have been arrested or are represented by attorneys. In a court filing attached to their indictment, investigators believed they were in different countries last week. A spokesman for Graves’ office declined to elaborate.
Szabo and Radovanovic are accused of conspiracy and more than two dozen threats. The scheme spanned more than three years, from December 2020 to January 2024, according to prosecutors.
“Swatting is not a victimless prank — it puts real people at risk, wastes valuable police resources and causes significant emotional trauma,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves for the District of Columbia.
Szabo organized and monitored chat groups to coordinate attacks on 40 private citizens and 61 officials, including cabinet-level members of the executive branch of the federal government, the head of a federal law enforcement agency, a federal judge, current and former governors, and other states. officials, according to the indictment.
In December 2023 and January 2024, Radovanovic allegedly called government agencies to falsely report murders and imminent suicides or kidnappings at the homes of U.S. senators, members of the House of Representatives and elected government officials, according to the indictment. One of the calls led to a crash that resulted in an injury, according to the indictment.
