For about two weeks starting around Christmas in 2023 the American political establishment was harassed by a wave of crisis calls. A fire at the White House. A shooting at a prominent politician’s home. Bombs placed at churches and capitol buildings.
None of them were real.
Thomasz Szabdo, a Romanian man, was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in a U.S. prison for orchestrating the so-called “swatting” operation, according to a statement by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The calls targeted dozens of prominent people including politicians of both parties, media personalities, law enforcement officials and others.
The U.S. attorney’s office did not name the targets of the calls, but among those who reported being targeted at the time were then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. One call was to the White House, where President Joseph R. Biden was not present at the time.
“Swatting” is the practice of falsely reporting a violent crime in order to set off a law enforcement response. At the time, the hoaxes stoked fears of political unrest a year before the contentious 2024 election.
Prosecutors say the operation was the brainchild of Mr. Szabdo, 27, and designed to disrupt daily American life. Using an online chatgroup called “Shenanigans,” Mr. Szabdo and a cohort of young followers, many based overseas, mass-produced swatting calls and used Google Voice software to make more than 150 false reports of violent crime in December 2023 and January 2024, prosecutors say.
Swatting, so named because the tactic aims to draw a SWAT team or other rapid-response unit to a specific location, emerged in the mid-2000s and has transcended fringe corners of the internet to become an increasingly common problem. It’s also often a federal crime.
“Swatting is not just a nuisance — it’s extremely dangerous,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in the statement on Mr. Szabdo’s case. “This shows that we will cross the globe to track threats down.”
Mr. Szabdo, a Romanian national, was indicted in 2024 and extradited to Washington, D.C., where he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and threats last May.
Another man, Nemanja Radovanovic, was charged alongside Mr. Szabdo in 2024. According to court documents, he knew Mr. Szabdo from their online community, and made swatting calls from his home in Serbia using a script and numbers that had been provided to members of the online group.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Radovanovic was being extradited to face charges.
In texts, the men traded tips on what numbers and personalities to target in the United States, according to court documents. They said their goal was to cause chaos, not target one political party or the other.
“We are not on any side,” Mr. Szabdo wrote after directing a follower to swat a known Democrat on social media, according to the documents.
On Dec. 26, 2023, Mr. Radovanovic reported his progress.
“I did 25+ swattings today,” he wrote. “Creating massive havoc in america.”
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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