Alleged Member of Neo-Nazi Swatting Group Charged

[Karlston]

Alleged Member of Neo-Nazi Swatting Group Charged

Federal investigators on Friday arrested a Virginia man accused of being part of a neo-Nazi group that targeted hundreds of people in “swatting” attacks, wherein fake bomb threats, hostage situations and other violent scenarios were phoned in to police as part of a scheme to trick them into visiting potentially deadly force on a target’s address.

 

In July 2019, KrebsOnSecurity published the story Neo-Nazi Swatters Target Dozens of Journalists, which detailed the activities of a loose-knit group of individuals who had targeted hundreds of individuals for swatting attacks, including federal judges, corporate executives and almost three-dozen journalists (myself included).

 

A portion of the Doxbin, as it existed in late 2019.

An FBI affidavit unsealed this week identifies one member of the group as John William Kirby Kelley. According to the affidavit, Kelley was instrumental in setting up and maintaining the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel called “Deadnet” that was used by he and other co-conspirators to plan, carry out and document their swatting attacks.

 

Prior to his recent expulsion on drug charges, Kelley was a student studying cybersecurity at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Interestingly, investigators allege it was Kelley’s decision to swat his own school in late November 2018 that got him caught. Using the handle “Carl,” Kelley allegedly explained to fellow Deadnet members he hoped the swatting would get him out of having to go to class.

 

The FBI says Kelley used virtual private networking (VPN) services to hide his true Internet location and various voice-over-IP (VoIP) services to conduct the swatting calls. In the ODU incident, investigators say Kelley told ODU police that someone was armed with an AR-15 rifle and had placed multiple pipe bombs within the campus buildings.

 

Later that day, Kelley allegedly called ODU police again but forgot to obscure his real phone number on campus, and quickly apologized for making an accidental phone call. When authorities determined that the voice on the second call matched that from the bomb threat earlier in the day, they visited and interviewed the young man.

 

Investigators say Kelley admitted to participating in swatting calls previously, and consented to a search of his dorm room, wherein they found two phones, a laptop and various electronic storage devices.

 

The affidavit says one of the thumbs drive included multiple documents that logged statements made on the Deadnet IRC channel, which chronicled “countless examples of swatting activity over an extended period of time.” Those included videos Kelley allegedly recorded of his computer screen which showed live news footage of police responding to swatting attacks while he and other Deadnet members discussed the incidents in real-time on their IRC forum.

 

The FBI believes Kelley also was linked to a bomb threat incident in November 2018 at the predominantly African American Alfred Baptist Church in Old Town Alexandria, an incident that led to the church being evacuated during evening worship services while authorities swept the building for explosives.

 

The FBI affidavit was based in part on interviews with an unnamed co-conspirator, who told investigators that he and the others on Deadnet IRC are white supremacists and sympathetic to the neo-Nazi movement.

 

“The group’s neo-Nazi ideology is apparent in the racial tones throughout the conversation logs,” the affidavit reads. “Kelley and other co-conspirators are affiliated with or have expressed sympathy for Atomwafen Division,” an extremist group whose members are suspected of having committed multiple murders in the U.S. since 2017.

Investigators say on one of Kelley’s phones they found a photo of he and others in tactical gear holding automatic weapons next to pictures of Atomwaffen recruitment material and the neo-Nazi publication Siege.

 

As I reported last summer, several Deadnet members maintained a site on the Dark Web called the “Doxbin,” which listed the names, addresses, phone number and often known IP addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information on hundreds of people — and in some cases the personal information of the target’s friends and family. After those indexed on the Doxbin were successfully swatted, a blue gun icon would be added next to the person’s name.

 

One of the core members of the group on Deadnet — an individual who used the nickname “Chanz,” among others — stated that he was responsible for maintaining SiegeCulture, a white supremacist Web site that glorifies the writings of neo-Nazi James Mason (whose various books call on followers to start a violent race war in the United States).

 

Deadnet chat logs obtained by KrebsOnSecurity show that another key swatting suspect on Deadnet who used the handle “Zheme” told other IRC members in March 2019 that one of his friends had recently been raided by federal investigators for allegedly having connections to the person responsible for the mass shooting in October 2018 at the Tree of Life Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh.

 

At one point last year, Zheme also reminded denizens of Deadnet about a court hearing in the murder trial of Sam Woodward, an alleged Atomwaffen member who’s been charged with killing a 19-year-old gay Jewish college student.

 

As reported by this author last year, Deadnet members targeted dozens of journalists whose writings they considered threatening to their worldviews. Indeed, one of the targets successfully swatted by Deadnet members was Pulitzer prize winning columnist Leonard G. Pitts Jr., whose personal information as listed on the Doxbin was annotated with a blue gun icon and the label “anti-white race/politics writer.”

 

In another Deadnet chat log seen by this author, Chanz admits to calling in a bomb threat at the UCLA campus following a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos. Chanz bragged that he did it to frame feminists at the school for acts of terrorism.

 

On a personal note, I sincerely hope this arrest is just the first of many to come for those involved in swatting attacks related to Deadnet and the Doxbin. KrebsOnSecurity has obtained information indicating that several members of my family also have been targeted for harassment and swatting by this group.

 

Finally, it’s important to note that while many people may assume that murders and mass shootings targeting people because of their race, gender, sexual preference or religion are carried out by so-called “lone wolf” assailants, the swatting videos created and shared by Deadnet members are essentially propaganda that hate groups can use to recruit new members to their cause.

 

The Washington Post reports that Kelley had his first appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Va. on Friday.

 

“His public defender did not comment on the allegations but said his client has ‘very limited funds,'” The Post’s courts reporter Rachel Weiner wrote.

 

The charge against Kelley of conspiracy to make threats carries up to five years in prison. The affidavit in Kelley’s arrest is available here (PDF).

 

 

Source: Alleged Member of Neo-Nazi Swatting Group Charged (KrebsOnSecurity - Brian Krebs)

[dMog]

this person and his followers deserve a brick wall and bullet.

[steven36]

15 hours ago, dMog said:

this person and his followers deserve a brick wall and bullet.

that's sort of  extreme for swatting on the internet  now if he had killed someone  he should be executed  . Back in the  90s a  rich kid ran over  a guy that was a punk rocker anarchist and killed him and because he looked different the Jury let the  rich kid off on just probation . The  USA  the land of the free were it just depends  on what you look like do you get punished  or not . All Raciest don't just hate skin color are even Neo Nazi's  some of them  are from well groomed  rich families and they bully people  because they was not born with a sliver spoon in there mouth.

 

Death of Brian Deneke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Deneke

[dMog]

not extreme for him being a neo Nazi. I STAND BY THAT STATEMENT. Equating a neo Nazi  as simple as being born with a silver spoon in the mouth,  A statement like that shows you do not know at all what neo Nazism stands for or what they want America to become. THY ARE NOT RICH SPOILED KIDS HAVING MISGUIDED FUN ...They WANT  to kill a lot of people in this world, and that is just a beginning of what they want.

 

[steven36]

1 hour ago, dMog said:

not extreme for him being a neo Nazi. I STAND BY THAT STATEMENT. Equating a neo Nazi  as simple as being born with a silver spoon in the mouth,  A statement like that shows you do not know at all what neo Nazism stands for or what they want America to become. THY ARE NOT RICH SPOILED KIDS HAVING MISGUIDED FUN ...They WANT  to kill a lot of people in this world, and that is just a beginning of what they want.

 

I know what it stands  for but even some Nazi 's changed into good people latter on in life .  Who made you judge , jury  and executor? Many join hate groups because they want to fit in . the skinheads  is is just like any other prison gang in the USA  along with the bloods and the crypts and lots of  smaller ones that is black raciest gangs . also Mexicans  have there own gangs . You can tell you dont nothing about the USA  really.  If you ever went to  prison and said  what you say hiding  behind your keyboard you would end up shanked . If that guy goes to prison in the OP he will have protection . Who are you going to join if you ever get sent?  because if you don't  side with a gang in there you will end up bad off if you even live . every prison in the USA is ran by gangs  and  even some jails are too. You read the one sided media  but if you ever go to prison you will see the way the world really is. People out on the street who was your freind in there will kill you . If you dont belong to something  you have no friends in there.

 

I wonder how many kids went too prison and join a gang so they don't get  hurt anymore in the pen ?  You live in a world of how you think things should  be , You think everybody should love each other and they should be no hate  . But thats not how the real world  is  . If someone is someway you don't like try and talk some sense into them don't kill them or they want anyone  left on the planet . it's enough people shooting each other in the streets and killing each other in the prisons   as it is without  people wanting to kill that brings you down to the hater's level. In the USA there hate on all sides and they always have been regardless  of what they believe  .

 

But the bottom line is in the USA  if you have money you can hire a good  lawyer  and play the race card and get  away  with murder because OJ  Simpson done it  . But also if you have money you can be a raciest and hire a good lawyer and get out of it. It's not  about if your guilty or not it's about how much money you have to fight it.

 

Kerbs  is always making somebody mad in 2013 he became one of the 1st journalist to get swatted  because  he post personal info on cyber criminals .n 2016, Krebs's blog was the target of one of the largest ever DDoS attacks,^[17] apparently in retaliation for Krebs's role in investigating the vDOS botnet. He brings that stuff on himself.