“Swatting” involves setting the police on innocent people by creating an illusion of an emergency situation. In Germany, a group is said to be responsible for swatting 132 Twitch streamers over a period of around two years. Some even happened multiple times. This is reported by SPIEGEL and the ARD magazine Contrasts.
Where does the information come from? The research comes from an article by Spiegel and the ARD magazine Contrasts. The episode of the magazine will be broadcast tonight, April 11th, at 9:55 p.m. on ARD.
During the research, the journalists gained access to a data set with 75,000 internal chat messages and audio recordings. They extend over a period of 6 years.
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Surrounded by 30 police officers during the harbor tour
Who did it hit? An article in the Tagesschau about the research says: The 31-year-old German streamer “quitelola” (cover photo) took a tour through the port of Hamburg, at the end of which a large police presence was waiting for her.
She says:
“It’s obviously a strange feeling when you’re stood against a wall and there are 20 to 30 police officers around you.”
Apparently unknown people had reported to the police that they were planning a knife attack on the ship’s captain.
What dimensions should that have? The research says that in the period examined, from February 2022, a total of 132 Twitch streamers were swatted by the group, some even multiple times. The perpetrators had a total of 1,048 streamers in their sights.
The article shows, among other things, how easily perpetrators can obtain data. A call can be heard at a police station in the Black Forest, where the perpetrator reports as “Oskar Schöttle, here” and claims that he is a police officer from Potsdam and needs to determine the identity of a woman. People were happy to help in the Black Forest.
What the responsible police headquarters sees in retrospect as “inadmissible data transmission” means that the security requirements were not followed here.
Who does that? It’s about a group that calls itself “NWO” (New World Order).
“I felt like a king”
Why do they do that?? The perpetrators apparently want to indulge in fantasies of power. They aim to be able to watch the swatting live on Twitch.
A member of the NWO says:
“It’s no different than turning on the TV and watching “On Patrol”.”
The recordings say:
“I had the time of my life. Just swatted people for 2 days. I felt like a king.”
Swatting is not a “joke”. In the USA, a completely innocent man, who was not the actual target of the swatting, died during a swatting in December 2018 in which the police were sent to a wrong address. Police shot him after a caller faked an armed hostage situation.
Police officer shoots innocent man after swatting – what happened next?