A California teenager prosecutors say is accountable for a whole bunch of swatting assaults round the US was uncovered after regulation enforcement pieced collectively a digital path left on a number of the web’s largest platforms, in response to court docket information launched this week.
Alan Winston Filion, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, California, faces 4 felony expenses in Florida’s Seminole County associated to swatting, or faux threats referred to as into the police to impress a forceful response, in response to Florida state prosecutors. Police arrested Filion on January 18, and he was extradited to Seminole County this week.
Filion’s arrest, first reported by WIRED on January 26, marks the end result of a multi-agency manhunt for the individual police declare is accountable for swatting assaults on excessive faculties, traditionally black schools and universities, mosques, and federal brokers, and for threats to bomb the Pentagon, members of the US Senate, and the US Supreme Courtroom. In the end, a YouTube channel, Discord chats, and usernames associated to The Lord of the Rings helped lead authorities to Filion’s doorstep.
Florida prosecutors charged Filion with 4 felony counts, together with three associated to allegedly making false stories to regulation enforcement and one for illegal use of a two-way radio for “facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism” that authorities say focused individuals based mostly on race, faith, or different protected lessons. Whereas prosecutors alleged that Filion “is accountable for a whole bunch of swatting and bomb menace incidents all through the US,” the costs Filion faces relate to a single Could 12, 2023, swatting assault towards the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida.
An lawyer for Filion was not instantly obtainable to answer WIRED’s request for remark.
Greater than a yr earlier than the swatting assault on the Florida mosque, brokers with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Filion’s father, William, at his residence in Lancaster, California, in response to court docket paperwork made public on Wednesday. The interview happened on April 21, 2022, the identical day the proprietor of a Telegram channel linked to swatting exercise posted, “SOMEONE JUST REPORTED ME TO THE FBI… LOL!”
In October 2022, authorities investigating swatting incidents involving calls made to a faculty in Anacortes, Washington, got here throughout a Telegram consumer related to a number of swatting and doxing channels. The consumer, “Nazgul Swattings,” had claimed accountability in one in every of these channels for the threats to the Washington faculties, in response to the identical court docket paperwork.
Over the next months, court docket information say, the FBI monitored channels linked to this consumer. A kind of, a channel referred to as Torswats (previously Nazgul Swats), had shared recordings of almost 20 hoax calls threatening areas across the nation, together with faculties in Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Because the FBI tracked Torswats’ public channels, Brad “Cafrozed” Dennis, a non-public investigator, was operating his personal parallel investigation on behalf of high-profile Twitch streamers who’d been swatted. In December, Dennis reached out to a consumer behind Torswats and requested to speak on a peer-to-peer chatting service referred to as Tox below the guise of ordering a swat. In line with information shared with WIRED, not talked about within the arrest warrant, whereas interacting on Tox, Dennis used Wireshark to observe his community site visitors. Within the course of, he uncovered an IP handle and the username “Paimon Arnum,” which was beforehand unknown to regulation enforcement.
