More cases of false alarms about hostage situations - police suspect 'swatting'

It was last week that the police received two alarms about false hostage situations, in two widely separated locations in Sweden. The two incidents had odd details in common, and the police soon suspected that the two incidents were somehow connected.

SVT News West wrote about two women in their 20s who were allegedly trapped in their apartments and under threat - in Falköping and Arvika, respectively - after several of their neighbors received a text message saying it was so. When the police arrived at the women's apartments, they were met by surprised faces - there was no dangerous hostage situation at all.

In addition to this, the women's parents received a false death message with the "police" as the sender. It was great that their daughters had died and were on their way to autopsy, something that shocked their parents. What should be the motive behind the death message, or the false alarms about hostage situations, confuses the police.

- Getting a text message as a parent stating that one's daughter has died in a traffic accident. I don't even know how I had reacted myself. And that someone had written this for fun, I think that is the most serious crime, says Marlene Andersson Wikman, police inspector at the investigation section in Skaraborg.

The two young women have one thing in common - they are both dedicated computer game enthusiasts. They are also active on the American streaming site Twitch - a web-based platform where gamers live-stream while playing computer games while others are watching. It is also not uncommon for the Twitch profiles to have a camera filming the players' faces while they are playing. Both the woman in Falköping and the woman in Arvika sat and streamed live via Twitch when the police got false alarms and later knocked on - something that was also seen in the stream.

When SVT News West talks to the police in Västmanland on Tuesday, they confirm that a case also happened there, as early as January 29 this year. There, too, there is a young woman who has been visited by police - with heightened readiness - after neighbors received false text messages that the woman was in serious trouble. Here, too, the parents should receive a false death notice a while before. There, too, the young woman sat and livestreamed as the police knocked.

- These police officers are in the process of breaking open the door just before it opens, and in that situation it is in a sharp position. The situation is very serious on the ground until the police can establish that it is a false alarm, says Johan Thalberg, spokesperson for the police in the West region.

The police now suspect that it is all about something called "swatting" in the United States. A phenomenon that originated in early wizarding culture on American internet forums, which is about "busing" the police force on a computer player. This is done by falsely alerting police that there is a serious crime at the computer player's address. It rarely happens while the computer player is streaming live, and the police intervention becomes visible to everyone watching. The phenomenon has resulted in at least one death in the United States, where the false alarmist was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

SVT News West has in its survey talked with several profiles within the gaming community in Västra Götaland. It then appears that there may be even more who have been exposed to swatting in Sweden than has been confirmed by the police so far.