A man from south Wales who was arrested following an international investigation into swatting incidents has been sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court.

Callum Dare, 26, used the dark web to encourage swatting incidents in Wales and the USA and then boasted about them.

“Swatting” is a term used the describe an act of harassing a victim by triggering an armed police response to that person’s location, based on a false report of an emergency.

One of the incidents was a hoax call made to the Los Angeles Police Department that there were bombs under chairs at the University of California resulting in an evacuation.

Another incident was a false call made to a Cardiff journalist that there were nail bombs and hostages at a Cardiff hotel in the city centre, leading to the area being closed off by police.

When police arrested Dare they seized his electronic devices and found files relating to a sophisticated phishing fraud, designed to obtain personal or payment details of dark web users for use by fraudsters.

Louisa Robertson of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Callum Dare put people in danger by encouraging the triggering of armed police responses, for his own thrills.

“When false alarms like this are raised, it is often multiple emergency services that are involved, drawing them away from people who genuinely need them.

“The international cooperation of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in different jurisdictions allowed the Crown Prosecution Service to build a strong case against Dare, showing how far reaching his criminality was, leaving him little choice but to plead guilty.

“I hope the sentence today deters others from carrying out these criminal acts.”

Callum Dare was sentenced to a total of two years and three months’ imprisonment.