Throughout 2023, synagogues, schools, and African American churches across the United States were targeted with hoax bomb threats. These "swatting" attacks – referring to the dispatch of SWAT teams – have resulted in mass panic and the evacuation of these institutions, and have contributed to an atmosphere of paranoia and insecurity around religious services.
The following report will highlight MEMRI’s exclusive research which disrupted a prolific international swatting ring in September 2023.
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The FBI defined "swatting" in a December 2023 press release: "'Swatting' is a term used to describe criminal activity by an individual or group who knowingly provides false information to police, suggesting that a threat exists at a particular location so that police respond with tactical units, or what's commonly known as a SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team."
During the summer of 2023, the MEMRI Domestic and Transnational Terrorism Threat Monitor (DTTM) produced two exclusive reports on an international swatting ring which claimed responsibility for several attacks, posting audio files of 911 calls in which members of the swatting ring reported leaving explosive devices in backpacks in synagogues, schools, African American churches, and other institutions. The group also posted video footage – usually taken from online live streams of religious services – showing these institutions being evacuated following the calls.
After discovering MEMRI's report, the group deactivated their Telegram channel but soon established a second channel, where they continued their activities. The DTTM team produced a second report on the group's continued swatting campaign, and provided both reports to authorities. The channel announced soon after this that a member had been arrested and that the group would be ceasing operations immediately.
The group has since remained offline, and the high-profile swatting attacks that the group had been engaged in stopped for a number of months. However, in recent months, similar attacks have taken place, with a methodology and target profile similar to that used by the group. While it cannot be confirmed that the group -- or former members of it – are responsible for the recent cases, the similarities are striking.
Over the weekend of December 16-17, 2023, a series of hoax bomb calls targeted over 200 Jewish institutions across the United States. This followed the December 12 arrest of a juvenile in West Covina, California, who had been running a server which facilitated an earlier spate of attacks which spanned July and August 2023.
The MEMRI DTTM will continue monitoring swatting activities and groups that engage in these attacks, and will report on cases and developments as further information becomes available.
MEMRI DTTM Research Disrupts Active Swatting Ring
The accelerationist neo-Nazi was an online group dedicated to calling in hoax bomb threats and threats of mass violence, particularly targeting Jewish institutions, African Methodist Episcopal churches, and LGBTQ bars. The group uses Telegram as their primary means of communication. After conducting a successful "swat" on a venue, the channel typically shared video footage of the building in question being evacuated, presumably taken from online streams, and sometimes, a 911 call recording of the threat being made.
As evidenced by an August 20, 2023, Telegram post, the group uses the 988 suicide hotline to phone in their bomb threats.
Since the first Telegram channel opened, the group have directly claimed responsibility for 33 incidents of "swatting," or making false reports to police that require a SWAT team or another unusual form of police mobilization, as shown in the map below. The group recently claimed that an active member was arrested and taken into police custody and have not posted since announcing that arrest.
The group have targeted Jewish institutions, African American churches, and LGBTQ+ locations.
On September 12, 2023, the channel shared several posts boasting about its recent swatting campaigns on synagogues and on a Jewish school. Several weeks earlier, on August 20, the channel had claimed responsibility for a swatting attack on the Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The channel posted a video of a female rabbi engaged in prayer, who then abruptly ends her service after being informed of the bomb threat issued by the "Division."
The group also issued warnings online, saying that they would increase their swatting activities during Rosh Hashanah Holy Days. On September 14, the channel wrote: "This fucking Friday, Friday Sunday and Saturday, there will be a lot of fucking swattings, kikes shall know what real fear is."
The group posted updates about other swatting incidents. On September 14, a member of the group called in a bomb threat which targeted the Way of Yah Synagogue, a Black messianic temple in Convers, Georgia. The channel shared a clip of the temple being evacuated and another audio clip of the 911 call in which the group member calls in the hoax bomb threat. During the call, the individual claims to have "planted a backpack with a pressure cooker bomb" at the temple.
The group posted a news article on September 15 referencing the evacuation of a Brooklyn synagogue due to a bomb threat. The group wrote: "new toss."
On the same day, the channel also posted two videos of synagogues being evacuated due to bomb threats during Rosh Hashanah.
In addition to synagogues and Jewish institutions, African-American churches are a frequent target of the group. The group has threatened at least one black funeral. On September 2, 2023, the channel shared a link to a YouTube livestream of a funeral service, and wrote: "I didnt bother clipping but i sent a bomb threat to a n**ger funeral [...] they cut the stream to black howeverbeit but u can hear audio still."
LGBTQ+ locations are also targeted. The organization boasted of calling in a bomb threat to an LGBTQ+ bar on August 31, 2023. The channel published a video of a 911 call between a Division member and the operator, in which the former stated that he planted a bomb inside the Akbar Bar, whose website describes it as a gay-friendly space, in Los Angeles.
Following MEMRI's first report on the group and their swatting tactics, the group created a new Telegram group in which they claimed that the first channel had been taken down for security reasons, and shared a screenshot of the MEMRI report.
The owner of the group claimed that the administrator who deleted the original channel also deleted their account, writing: "braol and aem deleted their accs... news article about the main channel came out including screenshots of my messages." The user then shared a link to the MEMRI DTTM article on the The group’s channel. A user called "theagarthanmanfromtheafricandessert Agaturk" asked "who leaked them, which pussy did it," to which the channel owner responded, "there was most likely a fed or informant in the channel."
On September 17, the group posted, on its new Telegram channel, the news that a member had been arrested. The channel wrote: "Well guys. I think one of our best one's got taken into custody by the police. We will keep you updated. We just hope everything is okay."
This was followed up a day later, when the channel wrote, "This is probably our last message. We are still waiting on confirmation to know if one of our brothers got taken into police custody. We will not be updating this channel anymore until then. Thank you for following us."
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