Romanian man sentenced to 4 years for swatting spree targeting US officials

Thomasz Szabo, a 27-year-old Romanian, was sentenced to four years in federal prison on Wednesday for orchestrating a coordinated campaign of swatting calls and bomb threats against American government officials. The targets spanned the full breadth of the federal apparatus: members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and the leadership of law-enforcement agencies. What began in 2018 as an online trolling operation from Romania had evolved by late 2020 into something far more dangerous—a network of people making hoax emergency calls designed to send armed police to the homes of public figures, turning the machinery of law enforcement itself into a weapon of harassment.

Swatting, as the practice is known, exploits the emergency response system by fabricating threats of violence or explosives. The caller's goal is simple: to watch armed officers descend on a target's address, to create chaos and fear, to generate what Szabo and his associates apparently found entertaining. Prosecutors described the appeal in clinical terms: these hoaxes "offered much more entertainment value to the defendant and his followers, since swatting and bomb threats often resulted in an observable real-world impact." The entertainment, in other words, came from watching the real world break.

By December 2023, Szabo's operation had grown to include at least two other conspirators: Nemanja Radovanovic, based in Serbia, and Alan Filion, operating from Florida. In a message to Radovanovic, Szabo made clear the operation's political calculus. They should target members of both parties, he said, because "we are not on any side." The next day, the swatting spree began in earnest. Over the following weeks, at least 25 members of Congress or their family members received visits from emergency responders responding to phantom threats. Dozens more state and federal officials were targeted. Each call diverted police and emergency personnel from genuine crises unfolding elsewhere in their jurisdictions.

Filion, who was a juvenile when he participated in the campaign, made approximately 375 swatting calls between August 2022 and January 2024. He was prosecuted as an adult and sentenced in February 2025 to four years in prison at age 18. Radovanovic's case remained unresolved at the time of Szabo's sentencing. The scale of the operation—hundreds of false emergencies, dozens of targets, resources hemorrhaged from real emergencies—illustrated how a handful of people with internet access and a willingness to cause harm could strain the systems meant to protect public safety.

Szabo's arrest came after Romanian authorities searched his home in January 2024. Secret Service agents questioned him following that search. He was extradited to the United States in November 2024 and pleaded guilty last June to conspiracy and threats charges. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of nearly five years. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed four years in prison plus three years of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney's office, under Jeanine Pirro, issued a statement: "This administration will not tolerate attacks on the institutions and individuals who serve this country."

The case represents a particular challenge for law enforcement: the perpetrators were scattered across continents, operating through encrypted channels, coordinating in real time across borders. Yet extradition worked. Prosecution worked. The machinery of justice, though slower than the speed of an internet connection, ultimately caught up. What remains is the question of whether four years—the same sentence imposed on an 18-year-old accomplice—adequately reflects the scope of the conspiracy or the diversion of resources from genuine emergencies. The case also signals that swatting, once dismissed as a prank or a curiosity of online culture, is now treated as a serious federal crime when it targets government officials. The occupational hazard for public servants has become a prosecutable offense.