16-year-old Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf won $3m in JulyPolice surrounded home on Saturday after hoax callBarely two weeks after winning $3m at the Fortnite
World Cup, Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf was “swatted” in the middle of a livestreaming session.
The 16-year-old was broadcasting to his legion of fans on streaming platform Twitch as he played Fortnite with friends when the incident occurred. Swatting involves a hoax call to the
police in the hope of armed officers descending on someone’s home. The practice has led to the death of at least one person in recent years: in 2017 Andrew Finch was shot and killed by armed police responding to a fake hostage report at his home. A
Los Angeles man was later sentenced to 20 years in
prison for the hoax call. He had been angry after losing an online game of Call of Duty to Finch, a 28-year-old father of two.