Fake Badges, Bomb Threats, Phony Search Warrants
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.
