Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times,
A man from Romania has pleaded guilty to felonies after he made false reports to elicit tactical police responses—known as “swatting”—against a former U.S. president, several members of Congress, federal judges, and state officials.
“Swatting” derives its name from “Special Weapons and Tactics” (SWAT) teams that are organized by police departments across the world, who respond to particularly dangerous emergencies, such as terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and other weapons of mass destruction.
The phenomenon of “swatting”—i.e., falsely reporting such an emergency to elicit a SWAT response—has emerged in recent years as a means of intimidation or to drain national resources.
Several high-profile individuals have been the victims of such “swatting” in recent years, many of them due to Thomas Szabo, a 26-year-old resident of Romania and citizen of that country, who filed many such reports against senior U.S. government officials while outside the United States, which led to an internet group encouraging others to do so.
Szabo was extradited to the United States in 2024 and, on June 2 of this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that he had pleaded guilty to two felony charges for the acts.
“Beginning on Dec. 24, 2023, and continuing through early January 2024, subordinate members of Szabo’s group perpetrated a spree of swatting and bomb threats that included, as its victims, at least 25 Members of Congress or family members of Members of Congress; at least six then-current or former senior U.S. Executive Branch officials, including multiple cabinet-level officials ... multiple members of the federal judiciary; [and] at least 27 then-current or former state government officials,” read a DOJ press release announcing the guilty plea.
The release also noted that Szabo threatened, in January of 2021, to detonate explosives at the U.S. Capitol and kill President-elect Joe Biden. The “former U.S. President” threatened by Szabo was not named in the release, though the phrase likely referred to Biden.
Szabo’s leadership of the unnamed group allegedly led to many subsequent incidents. The press release quotes a message to Szabo from one of his followers: “I did 25+ swattings today ... creating massive havoc in [A]merica. $500,000+ in taxpayers [money] wasted in just two days.”
Szabo pleaded guilty to two felony charges: criminal conspiracy and the issuance of threats involving explosives. Both charges carry prison sentences of five and ten years, respectively.
“This defendant’s targeted and ruthless behavior put countless people in danger, including law enforcement, public officials, and ordinary citizens,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said.
“Swatting attacks, that is, falsely reporting an ongoing threat of violence at a victims’ home address for the purpose of provoking a police response there, drain precious resources and can result in major injury or even death. Anyone who hijacks police resources for senseless crimes like these will have to answer for their actions.”
The rise in “swatting” has occurred alongside the prominent depiction of such SWAT teams in film and television. A television series named “S.W.A.T.” ran for eight seasons from 2017 to 2025 and was influenced by the popular 2003 film, starring Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson, of the same name.