For 18 months, a teenager allegedly operated a “swatting” service out of his father’s California home, where criminals could call in a hoax bomb threat or mass shooting almost as easily as ordering a burger on UberEats.
Alan Winston Filion, 17, is suspected of targeting hundreds of high schools, mosques, historically Black churches, US senators and even the US Supreme Court with swatting attacks that placed thousands of people in the crosshairs of heavily armed police response teams.
Prosecutors say the 6ft 3in teenager advertised his services under the pseudonym Torswats on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, charging as little as $40 to get someone’s gas shut off, $50 for a “major police response”, and $75 for a “bomb threat/mass shooting threat”.
Mr Filion would then post chilling audio of the 911 calls on Telegram as a proof of purchase, according to court documents.
Among the hundreds of “swats” that Torswats allegedly claimed credit for were multiple hoax callouts at the home of Patrick S Tomlinson, a Milwaukee-based science fiction author who says he has been swatted dozens of times in the past four years as part of a targeted harassment campaign by a group of “sociopathic” stalkers. hkh

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