Romanian swatting ringleader gets 4 years for targeting 75+ US officials

Thomasz Szabo, a 27-year-old Romanian extradited to the US in November 2024, drew a four-year federal sentence plus three years of supervised release for running an online community that orchestrated swatting attacks and bomb threats against more than 75 public officials, journalists, and four religious institutions. He pleaded guilty in June 2025 to conspiracy and threats involving explosives, after personally placing false reports including a December 2020 mass-shooting threat against NYC synagogues and a January 2021 bomb threat against the US Capitol and then-President-elect Biden.

Szabo’s group escalated sharply between December 2023 and early January 2024, hitting at least 25 members of Congress and their families, six senior executive branch officials including cabinet-level figures, 13 senior federal law enforcement officials, members of the judiciary, and 27 state officials. One follower bragged about making more than 25 swatting calls in a single day and burning over $500,000 in taxpayer response costs across two days.

A Serbian co-conspirator, 23-year-old Nemanja Radovanovic, was charged in August 2024 in separate proceedings. Prosecutors framed the sentence as a deterrent against treating swatting as a prank, given the armed-response risk to uninvolved civilians and the operational drain on law enforcement.