Two foreign citizens have been charged with falsely reporting threats against the U.S. Capitol and prominent officials, including members of Congress and Cabinet members, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Prosecutors did not identify a political or economic motive. In the filing, they wrote that one of the defendants, Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, noted that he and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, should target individuals across both political parties because they were “not on any side.”
Of the more than 100 people they targeted from December 2020 to this January, 61 were government officials, including chiefs of federal agencies and state officials.
False reports made to law enforcement agencies or emergency services in a bid to direct them to a particular address are known as swattings because police often deploy SWAT teams in response. Prosecutors said Szabo and Radovanovic had made more than 100 false reports of homicides, kidnappings, mass killings and the planting of explosives. They each face one count of conspiracy, 29 counts of threats and false information regarding explosives, and four counts of transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce.
“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 statement. “We will use every tool at our disposal to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable, no matter where they might be.”
In recent years, law enforcement agencies have faced a deluge of hoax threats, including ones involving claims of bombs at state Capitol buildings and others intended to harass election officials.
Prominent figures also have been subject to the threats, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the prosecution of former President Donald Trump; Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; and Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal election interference case against Trump. All were targets around the holidays last year, though it remains unclear if those were directed by Szabo and Radovanovic.
According to reports from earlier this year, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other senior Biden administration officials were said to have been targeted by a person living in Serbia who was a person of interest in more than 100 other swatting calls.
Szabo and Radovanovic also called in bomb threats against businesses and a university, threatened a mass shooting at synagogues in New York City, and threatened “mass murder” at the U.S. Capitol, according to the indictment.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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