Teen charged with 'cyberstalking' in bomb hoax case

An 18-year-old dual citizen of the US and Israel has been charged with making a string of online and phone threats against schools and Jewish community centers.

Michael Ron David Kadar has been charged by the US Department of Justice with five counts, including cyberstalking, for allegedly threatening shootings and bombings across the Florida community centers and, in a separate case, using VoIP calling and email services to make threats against a number of schools in Georgia.

The cyberstalking charge stems from a string of 'swatting' hoaxes in 2015 in multiple Georgia schools. In each case, police allege Kadar concealed his IP address with a proxy service and, using either a throw-away email account or a VoIP service with an automated voice, threatened to attack the schools.

Kadar is also alleged to have been behind a pair of swatting calls to homes in Athens, Georgia, once in 2015 and later in January 2017.

Also in January of 2017, it is believed Kadar orchestrated at least 245 bomb and shooting threats, mostly against Jewish community center facilities in Florida. The threats were made by placing calls with Google Voice and a number spoofing service.

When police eventually traced the calls back to an IP address in Israel, they had Israeli authorities carry out a search warrant on Kadar's home.

There, they examined his laptop and a USB drive which Kadar had used to collect recordings of his various 'swatting' calls as well as news clips of the coverage they generated and what they believed were advertisements Kadar had made to solicit his swatting services.

"Kadar allegedly took extraordinary steps to conceal his identity and location through several technological means, including voice alteration, use of proxy IP addresses, virtual currencies and caller ID spoofing,” acting US assistant attorney general Kenneth Blanco said of the charge.

"Thanks to the specialized training and expertise of our investigative team, we were successful in identifying, locating and apprehending the person accused of this despicable campaign of threats." ®