Two British teenagers made a series of bomb-hoax calls to lure armed police to the homes of YouTube stars in the US as part of online prank known as 'swatting', court hears

By JAMES TOZER, NORTHERN CORRESPONDENT Published: 19:21, 3 June 2026 | Updated: 19:21, 3 June 2026 Two British teenagers made hoax calls about bombs and shootings to US police targeting high-profile influencers while they were livestreaming on YouTube, a court has heard. Dylan Ash and Kieron Ellison, both 19, made the false claims in an attempt to lure armed officers to the homes of popular American internet personalities Adin Ross and Kai Cenat - a practice known as ‘swatting’. They also allegedly made a series of false reports of shootings and bombings at US schools and universities as part of an online group known as ‘Monkey Mafia’. In one case, one of the teens allegedly adopted a fake Asian or Arabic accent while giving the name ‘Sadam from ISIS’. The pair - accused of being motivated by ‘greed’, racism and ‘sheer antisocial hostility’ - went on trial at Liverpool Crown Court today accused of offences including conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Joe Allman, prosecuting, told the jury that Ash, of Warrington in Cheshire, and Ellison, of St Helens in Merseyside, were members of a ‘syndicate styled as Monkey Mafia’, which ‘focused on swatting activities’. Dylan Ash, of Warrington in Cheshire, stands outside Liverpool Crown court today, having been accused of offences including conspiracy to pervert the course of justice The incidents were said to have occurred between 2022 and 2024, starting when Ash was aged 16 ‘Swatting is a particularly serious form of hoaxing,’ he explained. It involves conveying ‘false information about an armed attack’ to police or other agencies with the intention ‘to provoke an armed response’. The ‘gold standard’ of swatting is that ‘a targeted individual is detained at gunpoint by the police’, he added. Swatting refers to SWAT or Special Weapons and Tactics teams, the court heard. ‘To state the obvious, you might get a more fearsome response if you call the police in America than north west England,’ Mr Allman said. ‘This, of course, entails real danger for the people who are being swatted.’ The incidents were said to have occurred between 2022 and 2024, starting when Ash was aged 16 and Ellison was 15, initially focusing on the UK. ‘Later, they would target prominent online influencers in the United States,’ the prosecutor said. ‘What Monkey Mafia would do is place a call to the police or to an entity like a suicide hotline. ‘They would then claim that a person was armed and behaving dangerously, and give enough information for the police to strike at the homes of, for example, Adin Ross or Kai Cenat, as the case may be.’ The court heard that Ash and Kieron Ellison (pictured), of St Helens in Merseyside, were members of a ‘syndicate styled as Monkey Mafia' Ellison was 15 when the first alleged incident took place Their ultimate objective was for an influencer to be arrested in front of their YouTube audience to ‘frighten and humiliate them’, he added. Other scenarios involved calling police in the US to make a false report of an attack at universities, schools, hospitals and hotels, Mr Allman said. ‘Usually, the armed attack call would involve an active shooter, together with a bomb in the form of a suicide vest, or perhaps the claim that there was a bomb or multiple bombs in the building in question. ‘Here, the aim was to provoke a large scale armed police response, which would cause massive disruption to the institution in question and to the people, of course, who had the misfortune to be there at the time.’ Additionally there was a ‘real risk of people being detained by the police’ if they fitted any description provided by the hoax callers, or their conduct gave cause for concern. Targets included Boston University, the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort in New Mexico, the University of Nevada, the University of Western Canada and Sparrow Hospital in Michigan, he said. The last incident saw the caller ‘adopt a fake accent which was intended to sound Asian or Arabic’ while giving the name ‘Sadam from ISIS’, Mr Allman said. While he said their motivation ‘may never be fully known’, he told the jury that ‘some members of Monkey Mafia hoped to monetise the activities of the group’ in addition to a ‘racist element’, with targets said to have been ‘mocked’ over their ethnicities. ‘It is highly likely that a combination of greed, online vanity, racist hostility and sheer antisocial hostility all played a part in who they decided to target,’ he added. Ellison’s involvement in Monkey Mafia was said to have ceased following his arrest in June 2023. But Ash and a third man who was not before the court, Liam White, were alleged to have ‘tried to reboot the swatting activities by setting up successor groups’. Both Ash and Ellison deny five counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to commit a bomb hoax. 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