Research on Internet trolls: “They want to destroy people”

A group of internet trolls has been carrying out organized attacks on live streamers for years – with false emergency calls. This is proven by research from Contrasts and mirrors. A data set shows: The “NWO” group is also hunting politicians.

The warning comes via radio. When the tour through the port of Hamburg ends, a large police presence is already waiting for Lola. “It’s of course a strange feeling when you’re stood against a wall and there are 20 to 30 police officers around you,” says Lola in an interview with ARD-Politics magazine Contrasts and the mirror. The 31-year-old streams her everyday life under the name “quiteLola”. She has more than 100,000 followers on the Twitch platform.

Lola did not plan a knife attack on the ship’s captain, as an unknown person is said to have reported to the police that day. She was “swatted” – that’s what it’s called when the police and fire department are deliberately sent to innocent people through false emergency calls. The perpetrators report a gas leak, a stabbing or a bomb. The phenomenon comes from the USA and is derived from the Swat teams, heavily armed police units. In the USA, several people have already died due to so-called swatting.

75,000 internal Chat messages

A joint research by Contrasts and Mirror now shows that there is a system behind the attacks in Germany. A group of Internet trolls has been organizing such swattings for years. It calls itself “NWO”.

A huge data set now provides an insight into their innermost being for the first time. In total, the editorial teams have more than 75,000 internal chat messages and audio recordings of conversations from various sources over a period of around six years.

Attacks on numerous politicians

In September 2023 it became known that numerous incidents had been reported to state politicians via emergency calls. One Contrasts and audio recordings available to Spiegel indicate that the “NWO” is responsible for the series. In it, two people are planning the attacks and they are also talking about lists that they want to have created.

Two files called “LTRLP.txt” and “LTNS.txt” contain names and private addresses of a total of 77 people. Almost all of them are current or former members of the state parliament from Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate. Ten of those randomly asked confirmed that they had been swatted at the time.

Among those affected is the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament member Lisa-Marie Jeckel (Free Voters). She said in the interview that she found the situation “frightening”. Police and fire engines drove up to her house in a village in the Taunus region.

“It’s like a kind of hunt”

Such operations have been happening in Germany for years, and the cases seem to be increasing. The attackers use the police as a weapon. The perpetrators really wanted to destroy people, says cyberpsychologist Catarina Katzer. The goal is to exercise control and power yourself. “It’s actually like a kind of hunt or a spiral. It gets worse and worse and there’s no stopping it.” Those affected could develop trauma as a result.

Since February, the “Institute for Security and Data Analysis in Streaming” (ISDS) has counted 1,048 streamers on Twitch who were targeted by the “NWO”. The ISDS campaigns against so-called “hateraids”, in German “hate attacks”. 132 Twitch streamers were affected by swatting during the period examined, sometimes multiple times. Added to this is the number of unreported cases.

Three to four attacks per week – for years

The perpetrators sit in front of the screen and try to watch live as the police arrive. “It’s nothing different than turning on the television and watching ‘On Patrol’,” says a young man who himself was a member of the “NWO”.

For the first time, the insider gives an interview about the group’s activities. In front of the camera, he hides behind a scarf and sunglasses, out of fear of his former comrades-in-arms and of prosecution. His name and some of his actions are known to the editors. He says he committed three or four swatting attempts – per week and over a period of two to three years.

Data queries in Search system the police

How the perpetrators of the “NWO” got their hands on the addresses is unknown. According to the insider, they also indirectly access the police search system POLAS. To do this, they called a police station using a fake phone number and pretended to be colleagues. Your excuse: You couldn’t access the data yourself at the moment, but you urgently needed it.

Contrasts and Spiegel have several audio recordings in which “NWO” members claim to have queried POLAS data. In one case, an attacker even recorded his call to a police station in the Black Forest. “Evening, Oskar Schöttle here,” he answers, claiming that he is a colleague from Potsdam who has to determine the identity of a woman. The officer appears to be helpful and gives him the victim’s address and various previous convictions without hesitation.

Upon request, the responsible police headquarters confirmed an “inadmissible data transfer”. In principle, telephone inquiries would only be answered as part of a call back after checking the availability of the requested location. However, this safety requirement was not followed in the case mentioned. The public prosecutor’s office is now investigating.

Group is apparently behind it Bomb threats

According to research by Contrasts and Spiegel apparently responsible.

The police have caught two suspects, 19 and 30 years old, and a third has still not been identified. The Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor’s Office assigns 33 cases to them. She is investigating charges of disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes.

One must be critical of the fact that this group has not yet been convicted, says SPD domestic politician Sebastian Fiedler. If the results of the investigation show that a group is working together to commit crimes over the long term, “then everything points to an initial suspicion of a criminal organization.”

Such a classification would give security authorities more opportunities to investigate the group. With regard to swatting, according to Fiedler, it can also make sense to “consider a specialized paragraph or a change to an existing paragraph.”