According to emails reviewed by WIRED, that information was central to how the FBI cracked the case and was the basis of subpoenas sent to Discord and Google in April 2023. to look up information about accounts identified by Dennis. By early May, the FBI had successfully established Torswats’ identity and location.
This month, Torswats privately claimed responsibility for cracking incidents in Telegram chats reviewed by WIRED. Those incidents affected up to 25 schools in Washington state, affecting an estimated 18,116 students and costing taxpayers about $271,173 in lost instructional time, according to Don Beeler, CEO of TDR Technology Solutions, a company that specializes in school monitoring and analytics. threats.
Additionally, 911 audio and other police records obtained by WIRED confirm that the same person made the calls for more than a dozen of these hit-and-run incidents. In some cases, the caller tells dispatchers that he was ordered by Satan to kill students. In others, he said he was bullied for being gay. In others, he seemed bored enough with the game not to bother coming up with a reason.
On July 12, the Torswats leadership announced a new crackdown operation called “The Great Offensive” targeting a dozen senators. Three days later, the FBI raided Fillion’s home and seized his electronic devices.
But the attack did not stop the attack.
On November 6, 2023 someone using the name Torswats claimed responsibility for a bomb threat directed at North Beach High School in Ocean Shores, Washington, via a Telegram message. According to police reports and call records obtained by WIRED, the caller posed as a drug dealer who wanted to report his client to police because he said he had planted pipe bombs around the school and was planning a mass shooting. That same month, a person going through Torswats also admitted to hitting a cybercrime investigator and expert named Keven Hendricks in private Telegram communications.
Both threats could be attributed to the same person, according to a law enforcement official who reviewed the records for WIRED but requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Details about Fillion’s life outside of his online activities remain scarce. Enrollment records from Lancaster’s Antelope Valley Community College show Fillion began pursuing a degree in mathematics in the fall of 2022. A former classmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, described Fillion as quiet and “forgettable.”
“He didn’t seem to have many friends,” they said.
In January 2024 a person linked to the Torswats Telegram account and claiming to be a friend of Fillion suggested that he was part of a group aimed at inciting racial violence and that he was looking for money to “buy guns and commit a mass shooting.” The claim is consistent with a written tip sent to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in April 2023. and obtained by WIRED, which alleges that the person behind the Torswats account is involved with a neo-Nazi cult known as the Order of the Nine Angles.
“He believes he is doing his part to bring about the end of days by ‘bleeding the system’s finances and man hours,'” the informant wrote.
Fillion’s family could not immediately be reached for comment. A sentencing date for the teenager has not yet been set.
Updated at 10:45 a.m. EST, November 2024: Added additional details about Fillion’s involvement in attacks on prominent US government officials and others.
