Foreigners Indicted over Swatting of Taylor Greene, Mayorkas and Dozens More

Two foreigners living outside the United States have been indicted in connection with a series of high profile swatting attacks between December 2023 and early 2024 in which those targeted included Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
U.S. government officials and members of Congress were among victims of the swatting, which involved false reports to emergency services. Newsweek Editor-At-Large Naveed Jamali, who was himself among those swatted, said a Secret Service agent had told him that those indicted were in Romania and Serbia.
The individuals were named as Thomas Szabo and Nemanja Radovanovic in the indictment released Wednesday. They each face 34 counts on charges of conspiracy and making threats. Newsweek was not immediately able to contact them or their lawyers.
A senior federal law enforcement official said the motive for the swatting was not known, but there was no evidence that it was partisan or economically motivated. The indictment states that Szabo allegedly told Radovanovic that their swatting activity should target victims across the political spectrum because “we are not on any side.”
Swatting usually involves false reporting of a mass shooting, kidnapping, crime or other emergency, with the goal of dispatching a heavy police response. Police are often told there is a violent threat inside the home of the intended target, in effect weaponizing a police response and putting the victims of swatting in danger. There are also concerns that swatting can divert police resources away from actual emergencies.
Swatting, which started in the gaming community, has since spread as a tool used by hate groups and to target high profile individuals. Wednesday’s indictments suggest a further escalation of the practice with the swatting of Americans by people overseas.
Previous reporting by CBS and NBC said that the victims of the incident included Mayorkas, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump’s two federal cases, and Representative Taylor Greene.
Jamali explained what had happened to him in December, 2023.
“I was taking my son to a Travis Scott concert when the Seattle Police Department called me and told me they had received a caller claiming to be me and that I had killed my wife and had explosives and a hostage,” Jamali told Newsweek. “Thank God nobody was hurt.”
Jamali said the address that had been swatted was his former residence. He said police had told him there was nobody living there at the time.
Jamali was a co-chair of Seattle’s Police Departments Swatting Mitigation Task Force and an Anti Defamation League fellow who worked on swatting. Prior to joining Newsweek, Jamali worked undercover against Russian military intelligence and then served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy.
“The safety and well-being of our staff is our highest priority. Our team of journalists works tirelessly to provide the public with essential information, and they should be able to do so without fear of retaliation. Swatting is a hazardous and malicious act that endangers lives, and we firmly denounce such behavior,” a Newsweek spokesperson said in a statement.
Prior to the unsealing of the indictment, the Secret Service, the lead agency on the investigation, notified victims that the two individuals had been indicted. Jamali said he received a call Tuesday from a Secret Service agent informing him that the foreign nationals indicted were Romanian and Serbian.
He told Newsweek that the suspects were charged with transmitting a threat online and conspiracy in the coordinated effort to swat 118 individuals, including some 40 public citizens, around 60 private citizens, three religious institutions and one university.
Others who were reportedly targeted include Senator Rick Scott, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case, and Maine Secretary of State Sheena Bellows, who ruled Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s primary.
According to the indictment, Szabo called a crisis intervention hotline with threats to detonate explosives at the U.S. Capitol and kill then-President-elect Joe Biden on January 17, 2021. He also posted messages on a pubic internet forum on January 6, 2022 threatening to commit mass murder and detonate explosives at the Capitol.
A retired senior law enforcement official with operational experience working against complex swatting attacks told Newsweek that swatting poses a significant challenge to law enforcement.
“When it comes to swatting the laws have simply not caught up, the result, is often those who commit these crimes do so with impunity, they are able to navigate the complex web of local, state, and federal jurisdiction and regulation to evade detection,” the official said.
Whatever the motives of those who carried out this swatting campaign, according to the retired senior law enforcement official, “these indictments against foreign individuals are exactly what is needed to build resilience against swatting.”
Updated on 08/28/2024 at 10.35 a.m. ET with additional comment from official.
Updated on 08/28/2024 at 11 a.m. ET with additional information from the indictment and comment from Newsweek.