“They play without understanding the consequences”: how teenagers are recruited into false miners online

On August 10, in St. Petersburg, police detained a 15-year-old teenager who is suspected of false mining of social institutions.

According to investigators, since the beginning of this year, the student sent messages about the mining of hospitals, museums and schools, in all cases no explosive devices were found in the buildings.

He sent emails with messages from one postal address, but each time he used new SIM cards in his phone, which he bought from his hands.

The teenager himself did not deny anything and confessed to the crime.

During interrogation, the police asked him if he received orders for mining specific places for money, in particular, the school where he studied - her teenager "mined" several times. 

“No, your school - just like that.

(For school

) there seemed to be orders in Zhukovsky.

Mined Pulkovo airport, subway cars, museums, schools, hospitals,” said the teenager.

The video of his interrogation at home was published by the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 

Now he is a suspect in five criminal cases of knowingly false reports of terrorism.

According to Art.

207 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, he faces imprisonment for up to eight years, and his parents - a fine of up to 1 million rubles.

The student is now at home, he was released on bail, Vyacheslav Stepchenko, official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, told RT.

“This is the first time the price has dropped so much”

A wave of false mining covered Russia at the end of March this year.

Almost every day, regional media and groups on social networks report the evacuation of another shopping center, administrative office, court after receiving information about the planted bombs.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the first six months of this year alone, the police received more than 12,000 reports of false mining of buildings.

“The number of reports of deliberately false mining of state, educational institutions and commercial organizations for the six months of this year amounted to 12,215, 464 were disclosed,” the department replied to a request from RT.

This year, the police identified 13 minors involved in false mining, two of them do not live in Russia.

Igor Bederov, head of the information and analytical research department at T.Hunter, notes that now in the Russian-speaking segment of the network there is a subculture of false miners, or matchmakers, which unites teenagers aged 13-16 from post-Soviet countries, mainly from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

From January to March alone, more than 60,000 profiles from 30 Telegram channels dedicated to swatting were recorded.

It is possible that not all members of such groups were engaged in sending messages, but they at least showed interest in this topic and regularly read manuals on anonymous false mining, which were published by chat administrators, Bederov notes.

“What is a subculture?

The presence of a stable group that professes common values.

Its members communicate with each other and do some common business.

In the case of swatting, we can already talk about the teenage subculture.

In addition, this topic is overgrown with legends.

There are rumors in social networks that there are swat associations that work on the dark web and allegedly collect tens of thousands of dollars per share by mining on behalf of the stars, ”says Bederov.

As for potential earnings, the prices for “mining” on the Russian Internet have become very low.

This happened due to an active proposal from users.

“In the first three months of this year, the average price for sending messages about false mining fell to 250 rubles - for the first time since the emergence of swatting on the network.

There were periods when the price of fake mining varied: 5-10 thousand rubles for sending several messages.

Now the extremely high offer has devalued these services, ”explains the interlocutor of RT.

Feeling of power

Teenagers are attracted to swatting not by earnings, but by the opportunity to communicate with like-minded people, as well as to feel the power, Igor Bederov is sure.

“From the records of interrogations of detained teenagers, it becomes clear that for them this is a kind of way to gain some kind of power.

It seems that you can control government agencies, the police and even specific people.

Sometimes matchmakers deliberately send messages on behalf of a specific person they want to set up, so that law enforcement officers will come to him later, ”he says.

The opportunity to manage adults is really very tempting for schoolchildren, says Sergey Enikolopov, Ph.D.

“You can immediately appreciate the fruit of your work: I called, wrote a message - and then I see how I scared so many adults with one message,” explains a specialist who also deals with the psychology of aggressive behavior.

In the chat rooms studied by RT, matchmakers constantly send media reports about the mining of certain buildings in Russian cities.

In the comments to this news, chat participants assign these “merits” to themselves and discuss how and what else can be “mined”.

Another “attractive” feature of false mining is its apparent impunity, adds Enikolopov.

“On the one hand, sending such messages gives adrenaline, a sense of risk.

On the other hand, these children play without understanding the consequences.

The media most often pays attention to the first part of the swatting: they write that a building or several schools in the city were mined.

But much less often do journalists talk about how caught teenagers are punished, what responsibility they bear.

Because of this, there is a feeling of complete impunity, ”the expert notes.

“Recruiting on social media is easier than in real life”

According to T.Hunter, the organizers of the last wave of “mining” were several immigrants from Ukraine who now live in Poland.

RT does not name the suspects in the interests of the investigation.

One of them is under 18 years old and has long been known to Russian law enforcement as a coordinator who persuaded teenagers to attack schools in Russia.

So, over the past year, his name was mentioned by at least two Russian teenagers who were detained by the FSB on suspicion of preparing a school shooting or administering such communities on social networks.

In the course of the study, T.Hunter employees recorded a number of email addresses from which members of swater groups located in Russia sent false reports about terrorist attacks.

The company has already handed over all this data to law enforcement officers.

“We found that these people administered groups in social networks through which they recruited teenagers in Russia, Belarus and Moldova and involved them in spreading false reports about mining.

In total, in Telegram, we have recorded more than two dozen such communities that have been operating in the past few months.

By the way, the coordinators are connected with various anarchist groups in Russia.

We can say that their actions are part of the information-psychological war against the Russians,” notes Igor Bederov.

At the same time, Bederov notes that recently the situation with the investigation of such cases is beginning to change for the better.

“Earlier, they investigated the email address from which the threat was sent by the matchmaker.

Now they are studying social networks and Telegram.

This allows you to identify new swaters groups and people who take responsibility for specific “virtual attacks,” the expert says.

An interlocutor of RT in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who investigates crimes in the field of computer information, believes that it is not so difficult to deanonymize, that is, to find out the identity of a false miner.

The problem is that most of them are outside of Russia, the source said.

This is due, among other things, to the fact that matchmakers, just like scammers, have a rule: do not “work” in the country where you live.

So, in one of the manuals, which is distributed in chats, it is said that residents of Ukraine when swatting may not use VPN for anonymity.

“It is not so difficult to figure out who exactly sent out the messages about the bombings.

But when we know exactly what this person’s name is, where he lives, how can we detain him if he is outside Russia?”

the interlocutor says.

According to him, mining from teenage matchmakers is a drop in the ocean.

The main wave comes not from individuals, but from the center of information and psychological operations (TsIPSO) of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine. 

“Teenagers most often do not engage in mining systematically.

They just want to show off, and on this they calm down.

And the systematic distribution of thousands of messages is, of course, CIPSO, ”adds the source.

As for supervising Russian teenagers, it is even easier to recruit them on social networks than in person, psychologist Sergei Enikolopov is sure.

In his opinion, this is due to the fact that today's students have poorly developed critical thinking: they tend to trust the information that comes to them, especially the one they find on the net.

“Remember, when you were a teenager, it was easy to force you to undress, take photos and send them on social networks to an unfamiliar interlocutor?

And modern teenagers are easy to convince of this!

Not very good adults actively exploit the imitative behavior of children in social networks, their desire for play and risk.

This applies not only to swatting, but in this area it is already a serious problem.

If earlier calls and messages about “mining” were hooliganism, now there are so many of them that it is closer to sabotage,” the psychologist believes.