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Adam Mosseri.
- In the past week, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has been targeted by fake emergency calls meant to bring armed police officers to his home in San Francisco, and an apartment owned by his brother in New York City, according to the New York Daily News.
- These faked emergency calls are classified as a violent crime, commonly referred to as "swatting." In both cases, responding officers were able to determine that the reports were hoaxes, though the callers reported shootings in progress.
- Multiple Facebook executives have reportedly been targeted by swatting calls, and Facebook is working with federal authorities to address the situation.
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Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has recently been the target of two false emergency calls that prompted an armed response from law enforcement in New York and San Francisco. Mosseri is one of several Facebook and Instagram executives that have faced similar types of harassment in recent months, according to the New York Daily News.
On November 3, someone claiming to be Mosseri's brother called 911 to report that he had gotten in an argument with his wife and shot her three times. The caller told police the incident had taken place in a New York City apartment owned by Mosseri's brother. Police eventually broke down the door to the apartment, which is owned Mosseri's brother, and determined that the call was a hoax, according to the Daily News.
Two days earlier, an emergency caller reported a shooting at Mosseri's San Francisco home, but responding officers realized the call was faked. According to the New York Post, the head of security for Facebook, Instagram's parent company, told the NYPD that it has been working with the FBI and Secret Service to resolve the threats against Facebook employees.
In January, another Facebook executive was the target of a hoax emergency call that claimed he had shot his wife and taken his children hostage at their home in Palo Alto, California.
Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the swatting attempts.
These faked emergency calls are classified as a violent crime and commonly referred to as "swatting." In some cases, the targets of these hoaxes have been shot and killed by law enforcement who believe they are responding to a violent threat.
In March, a 26-year-old California man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for calling in dozens of fake emergency calls, including one that led to the death of Kansas resident who was shot by police.
