Fake Badges, Bomb Threats, Phony Search Warrants
Authorities say Anton Iagounov impersonated multiple law enforcement agencies and sought to investigate his own crimes. Iagounov is said to have made bomb threats, spoofed elected official's phone.
A man allegedly masquerading as an FBI agent, ATF agent, NSA agent, DEA agent, NASA agent, and Defense Department agent was arrested for impersonating law enforcement, calling in bomb threats, attempting to investigate with actual law enforcement those same bomb threats, and filing fake search warrants in federal courthouses around the country. The allegations were made in newly unsealed court records which are being reported for the first time by Court Watch.
According to a criminal complaint first filed in the Eastern District of California, Anton Iagounov spent years impersonating various law enforcement agencies. Iagounov first came on law enforcement’s radar when he allegedly called in bomb threats to INTERPOL in December 2021. Authorities say he used a spoofed phone number and then followed up with the FBI and ATF claiming to be an employee from the “intelligence community” with tips on cracking the case. A search of his electronics revealed that Iagnounov allegedly made multiple additional bomb threats to Saddleback Memorial Hospital in California, U.S. Senator Cynthis Lummis’ office, the city hall offices of Temple, Texas, Luxor Casino in Nevada, an Albany airport, a Walmart in Albany, New York, an airport in Nevada, and city hall in Boston, Massachusetts. The later bomb threat was made on the ninth anniversary of the Boston marathon and resulted in the evacuation of city hall. According to court records, Iagnounov spoofed the phone number of Texas Representative Eugene Wu’s office to call in the threat at the Nevada airport.
The search warrant revealed that shortly after making the calls, Iagnounov repeatedly searched for local news coverage of the bomb threats. A Times-Union story from that time period cited law enforcement officials saying they were investigating the case and it involved spoofed calls.
The arrest occurred on April 19th. The Justice Department moved to detain Iagounov pending trial. A federal judge sided with prosecutors, citing the seriousness of the charges and the lack of connections to the community. An attorney for Iagnounov did not respond to a request for comment. A similar request to the Justice Department press office did not yield an immediate response.
In 2022, Iagnounov was stopped by Nevada police for an obstructed license plate and a search of his car found a fake FBI badge. When he was arrested, he told authorities that he “Contracted or trained with the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S Marshalls, and the Department of Justice.” He also told them that he got his FBI badge ““red-teaming” in an operation however law enforcement was “not cleared” to know about it.” Iagounov told authorities he was with the National Security Agency and provided a phone number of an NSA officer to call. When contacted, the NSA officer denied knowing Iagnounov and the FBI believes he got her contact information from an NSA code breaker challenge email she sent to students.
Iagnounov went somewhat viral when he posted on his YouTube page a bodycam video of his arrest while creating a false representation of a purported FBI agent (himself) being arrested by local cops. The video entitled, “FBI Arrested by Dumb Cops” has millions of views and a legion of commenters disparaging police for arresting who viewers believed to be an FBI agent.
Following his Nevada arrest on state charges of impersonating a sworn officer, Iagnounov allegedly made repeated threatening calls to the police department using both spoofed numbers and voice distortion. Court records say he also filed a freedom of information act request to the FBI, falsely stating it was from Carson City Sheriff Kenneth Furlong. The sheriff was in charge of the law enforcement agency that arrested Iagnounov and the forged FOIA document requested the visitor logs and names of Sacramento FBI personnel. A few months after that, the FBI says Iagnounov faxed letters purportedly being from other local law enforcement departments announcing the death of Furlong and a fake FBI wanted poster of the sheriff. Shortly following, authorities contend that Iagnounov continued to make spoofed threat calls to the home phone numbers of several police officers in the department. Until his federal arrest last week, Iagnounov was a fugitive because of his failure to appear on the Nevada state charges.
In July 2022, court filings say Iagnounov created and attempted to file search warrants under the name of real federal law enforcement agents in federal court districts in Georgia, California, Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Utah, and New York. Authorities say Iagounov registered a site, www.usoig.us and used it to send purportedly official search warrants. It is not clear if some of those attempts were successful, but court records say that in at least two instances, a federal clerk’s office was able to prevent the false filings by doing due diligence on discrepancies in the documents.
A LinkedIn profile that appears to be Iagounov lists his current job as a Deputy U.S. Marshall in California. Previous work experience includes stints at the Justice Department, NSA, and U.S. Secret Service, listing the work locations as “remote.” In recent months, the profile account has taken to positively commenting and liking the promotion announcement of law enforcement officials. The account has not been active since Iagnounov’s arrest by law enforcement.
Indictment is now in
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/south-lake-tahoe-man-indicted-impersonating-federal-officer
Just another Russian introducing mischief and/or chaos in the US?