Callum Dare encouraged others to carry out dangerous hoaxes, made mini-movies from the footage
A Welshman was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for his role in numerous swattings in the UK, US, and Canada.Callum Dare, 26, was an administrator of Doxbin, a dark web platform frequented by individuals that expose the personally identifiable information (PII) of people, usually to encourage harassment or to target them through swatting attacks.The Talbot Green man never actually carried out a swatting call himself, although investigators said "he was an active participant" in Doxbin's "#deadnet" channel, "where he encouraged and assisted others in targeting individuals and organizations through swatting attacks."
The investigation into Dare began in May 2019, when he was aged 19, after the FBI engaged South Wales Police and Tarian Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU). Tarian ROCU said messages on Dare's phone tied him to "multiple" swatting attacks in the US and Canada.
Digital forensics further showed that Dare assembled montages of footage taken from internet livestreams and other sources to showcase emergency services' response to swatting calls. He shared them in the #deadnet Doxbin channel "in an attempt to encourage others to carry out similar offences," Tarian ROCU said.One of those swattings involved a call made to the Los Angeles Police Department in which the caller, speaking with a fake Russian accent, claimed there were bombs placed under chairs in a University of California lecture theater, resulting in an evacuation.Investigations by Welsh police further tied Dare to a swatting attack on December 17, 2018. A caller phoned a Western Mail journalist claiming to be armed with nail bombs and holding hostages at Cardiff's Sandringham Hotel on St Mary Street.The journalist alerted police, who responded by closing off and evacuating St Mary Street, causing significant disruption in the country's capital during one of the busiest periods of the year.Other incidents included calls made to another US university while protests against Milo Yiannopoulos, a far-right political commentator, were ongoing, as well as others targeting individuals. One was a programmer based in Canada, who was swatted after the caller claimed to be at the address and had just shot their girlfriend, taken hostages, and was armed with explosives, according to information heard at Cardiff Crown Court, reported by WalesOnline. This call catalyzed Dare's undoing. Canadian authorities engaged the FBI, and together they seized Doxbin and #deadnet chat logs, discovering that the usernames "Chans" and "KT" belonged to a Doxbin admin likely based in Wales. The information was passed to Welsh police in 2019.
