Held in his bedroom, teen whose hoax bomb alerts shut 400 schools
A TEENAGER was facing jail last night for a terrifying bomb hoax campaign that led to the evacuation of 400 schools.
George Duke-Cohan, 19, caused mass panic by sending more than 24,000 emails to schools from his bedroom in Watford.
In his messages he claimed pipe bombs had been hidden on the premises – leading to thousands of pupils being sent home.
Even after being unmasked and arrested by the National Crime Agency, Duke-Cohan went on to make a hoax call about a bomb threat on an airliner. In a phone call to San Francisco airport he posed as a worried father whose daughter had been taken hostage by suicide bombers.
The US authorities launched a full-scale counter-terrorism response, detaining almost 300 people on the United Airlines jet after it landed.
Investigators discovered the entire campaign was caused by a petty feud among online computer game players.
Duke-Cohan used software to make it appear as though the email threats were from a gaming network on which players could compete in Minecraft, a popular adventure and building game. He posed as part of a hacking group known as the Apophis Squad using the nickname TR1D3N7 (Trident).
In one message on Twitter – now deleted – he used the hashtag # swattheworld, referring to the practice of falsely sending emergency services to addresses by claiming people are in danger.
Experts believe he wanted to discredit the network, which he accused of shutting down rivals.
At Luton Magistrates’ Court yesterday, Duke-Cohan, originally from Kendal, Cumbria, pleaded guilty to three counts of making hoax bomb threats.
He was remanded in custody and was warned he is likely to be jailed when he appears at Luton Crown Court later this month.
The first part of his hoax email campaign caused chaos nationwide as hundreds of schools shut their doors in March.
Within weeks Duke-Cohan, who studied at Parmiter’s School, a well- performing comprehensive, was arrested in his bedroom in Watford, where he lived with his mother and sister.
However, he restarted the campaign the following month – despite being banned George Duke-Cohan is arrested at his home in Watford from using computers and other electronic devices under his bail conditions.
This led to him being rearrested and forced teachers to close schools in the North East, the Home Counties, London, Bristol and Humberside.
He also sent email threats to schools in the US.
And then, in August, DukeCohan called police at San Francisco airport to falsely claim gunmen had taken over incoming flight UAL 949 and that one had a gun. In a chillsemi-
‘Went on to fake plane hijacking’
ing phone call, the teenager posed as a desperate father whose crying daughter had called to say her flight had been hijacked.
In a recording Duke-Cohan is heard saying: ‘She said they were being held hostage, they were pushed to the back of their plane and they had a bomb… one of the men had a bomb – and it just cut out.’
The NCA later discovered the entire campaign may have originated with an online gaming feud. Rival gamers claimed they had identified Duke-Cohan, who hid behind an online pseudonym, and passed his identity to Hertfordshire Police. In an online message they claimed: ‘We were on livechat with police in Hertfordshire and got this piece of s*** arrested.’
Another rival said Duke-Cohan and others acted as if they were ‘e-gods’ but ‘are actually complete skill-less braindead retards aged 12’.
No one was at the teenager’s £475,000 detached family home on the outskirts of Watford last night.
A family who live next door said they were ‘ concerned’ after their daughter’s nursery received a hoax call about a bomb on site. It is now believed the call was made by Duke-Cohan.
The child’s mother said: ‘The school called and told us about the bomb scare.
‘I was concerned, of course. I knew we had to go and pick her up. But then several other schools in the area also received the calls, so they knew it was a hoax.’
But the neighbours said that they were ‘surprised’ to hear the news as Duke-Cohan had always ‘ seemed a nice young lad’.
Another neighbour, who gave her name as Jackie, added: ‘He was always a very polite, very quiet, very shy boy so it’s a complete surprise.’
Another woman, 20, who attended Parmiter’s with him, said: ‘He just seemed like an average boy. He was quite brainy … he never got in trouble at school.’
An NCA spokesman said the case proved that operating online would not offer offenders anonymity. Duke-Cohan’s father declined to comment at his semidetached home in Kendal last night.