WASHINGTON — A former U.S. president and several members of Congress were the targets of a plot by two European men to intimidate and threaten dozens of people by phoning false police emergency reports to their homes, according to court records unsealed Wednesday.
According to the federal indictment, Tomas Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, made “swatting” calls to approximately 100 people, provoking aggressive responses by police officers at the victims’ homes.
The Secret Service agent’s affidavit did not name any former US presidents or other government officials who were allegedly victims of the prank calls. The swatting attacks also included a series of incidents over Christmas 2023 targeting members of Congress that were reported by CBS News Investigative Services earlier this year.
The newly unsealed indictment alleges that the pair also stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 17, 2021, just two weeks after the Capitol attack, falsely claiming they planned to kill then-President-elect Biden with a bomb. The indictment also alleges that the pair stormed the Capitol again on Jan. 6, 2022, making false threats of violence.
The indictment does not specify that the two defendants are accused of threatening the former president, but it does say that one of the alleged victims is a “former elected official in the executive branch” who was the subject of a Swat attack on Jan. 9, 2024. Radovanovic falsely reported a murder and threatened to set off an explosion at the individual’s home, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, Szabo told Radovanovic that he should choose targets from both Republicans and Democrats because “we’re not on either side.”
“While some of these calls were targeted at seemingly randomly selected civilians, the majority of the calls were targeted at government employees, family members of government employees, and other prominent individuals,” investigators wrote.
The calls also included threats to carry out a mass shooting at a synagogue in New York City and to detonate explosives at the U.S. Capitol and at a university, according to the indictment, which was handed up by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., last Thursday.
Online court records in Washington do not say whether Sabo and Radovanovic have been arrested or whether they are represented by lawyers. Investigators believe they were in different foreign countries last week, according to court documents attached to the indictment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, declined to provide further details.
Secret Service agents interviewed Szabo in Romania in January, and he told them he had been involved in both swatting and bomb threats since late 2020, according to the affidavit.
Investigators interviewed Radovanovic in Serbia in February, and he recited portions of a “script” he used during the swatting calls, according to the affidavit. Radovanovic claimed he was acting at the direction of a minor who provided him with the victim’s address.
Szabo and Radovanovic are charged with conspiracy and more than 20 counts of racketeering. Prosecutors say the conspiracy took place over three years, from December 2020 to January 2024.
“Swatting is not a victimless prank – it puts real people at risk, wastes valuable police resources and inflicts significant psychological trauma,” Graves said in a statement.
According to the indictment, Szabo organized and controlled chat groups to coordinate swatting attacks against 40 private citizens and 61 federal officials, including cabinet-level members of the executive branch of the federal government, the heads of federal law enforcement agencies, federal judges, current and former governors, and other state officials.
Szabo went by the nicknames “Prank” and “Cypher,” according to the indictment. Radovanovic went by the nicknames “Thuggin” and “Thug Hunter,” according to court records. Prosecutors allege the pair conspired to “harass and endanger.”
According to the indictment, Radovanovic allegedly called government agencies in December 2023 and January 2024 to falsely report murder and suicide threats and kidnappings occurring at the homes of U.S. senators, representatives and state elected officials. One of the calls resulted in a car accident with injuries, according to the indictment.
The FBI reported a surge in swatting calls in late 2023 and early 2024, with some of the targets related to the case against former President Donald Trump. A fake emergency call reported a shooting at the home of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s election interference case in Washington. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith was also the target of a fake emergency call on Christmas Day 2023.
A CBS News investigation in January found that one of the targets of a swatting operation that took place on Christmas Day 2023 was Brandon Williams, a first-term Republican congressman from upstate New York. A congressional official familiar with the investigation said earlier this year that the swatting attack against Williams was suspected to be the work of international criminals.
Georgia Republican Senator Jon Albers, whose home in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell was attacked, said he expected the United States to seek the extradition of the two suspects and put them on trial.
“This will send a very strong signal to others, both domestically and internationally, that we are going to find you and we are going to come after you,” Albers told The Associated Press.
Georgia Sen. Clint Dixon, a Republican whose Buford home was the target of swatting phone attacks last Christmas and on Dec. 26, said he felt a “sense of relief” and his wife was “overjoyed” after being informed by the Secret Service that a suspect had been identified. Dixon said police tactical teams, fire trucks and ambulances were called to the scene in both incidents.
“What happened to me and my family was very frightening for my wife and children,” Dixon said. “It could have been a very dangerous situation.”
Scott McFarlane contributed to this report.
