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2 foreigners arrested for Georgia swatting calls
Two foreign nationals from Serbia and Romania are behind bars in what federal authorities say is a years-long conspiracy to carry out swatting attacks and bomb threats targeting American citizens, including a handful of Georgia lawmakers.
Federal authorities have arrested two men they say are behind a years-long conspiracy to carry out swatting attacks and bomb threats that targeted more than 100 American citizens, including several Georgia political leaders.
The indictment comes as a relief to Georgia State Senator Clint Dixon, who tells FOX 5 he and his family were the victims of a swatting call last Christmas.
Dixon says his family's gift exchange and early dinner plans with relatives at their Buford home was followed by an unexpected visit.
"My wife was actually upstairs packing. We were leaving for a trip the next day. I was watching football. She started screaming that police were coming up our steps on our front porch. She saw it on the Ring doorbell," he recalled.
It was a group of Gwinnett County Police SWAT officers responding to a 911 call from someone reporting a dangerous domestic dispute at Dixon’s address.
"Met by, I think it was, SWAT team members who alerted me that there had been a call of a domestic dispute that a male had shot a female," he said. "They asked where my wife was and by that time, she comes running down the stairs, and they realized it was a hoax."
Federal prosecutors say two men were the masterminds behind this call and dozens of others.
Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, are accused of organizing swatting calls and plotting bomb threats dating as far back as December 2020.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones were also among those targeted.
RELATED: Georgia lawmakers plan to make swatting a felony after string of Christmas incidents
"It’s an uneasy feeling that someone on the other side of the world … that the technology is out there for them to make these types of threats," Dixon said.
The two men are each charged with 34 felonies. While this was a federal case, the state senator says the attacks prompted lawmakers to bump the charge up for a first swatting offense to a felony and strengthen the penalties and fines for individuals caught trying to orchestrate one of these hoaxes.