A Romanian man has been sentenced to four years in prison for making bomb threats and triggering “swatting” attacks on dozens of US officials and lawmakers, the Justice Department said.
Thomasz Szabo, 27, who was extradited from Romania in November 2024, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and making threats involving explosives. The court sentenced him on Wednesday.
“Members of Congress, cabinet officials, the heads of federal law enforcement agencies, churches, journalists — Thomasz Szabo and his followers targeted them all with swatting calls and fake bomb threats designed to send armed police to their doors,” US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement.
“Swatting” comes from the armed SWAT teams, short for Special Weapons and Tactics, that are dispatched to tackle major emergencies in the United States.
The law enforcement response is often prompted by a caller who reports a false violent crime at a home.
The calls to law enforcement made by Szabo and his co-conspirators included fake bomb threats and false claims of homicides, suicides, kidnappings and mass shootings.
Szabo was the organizer and moderator of chat groups formed in 2020 where the conspirators communicated with one another, court documents said.
He went under the names such as “Jonah,” “Plank,” “Rambler,” and “War Lord.”
In December 2020 he made a false threat to commit a mass-shooting at synagogues in New York City and in January 2021, he threatned to detonate a bomb at the US Capitol and kill then President-elect Donald Trump.
