Serial Swatter and Stalker Mir Islam Arrested for Allegedly Dumping Body in River

A 22-year-old man convicted of cyberstalking and carrying out numerous bomb threats and swatting attacks — including a 2013 swatting incident at my home — was arrested Sunday morning in the Philippines after allegedly helping his best friend dump the body of a housemate into a local river.

Suspects Troy Woody Jr. (left) and Mir Islam, were arrested in Manila this week for allegedly dumping the body of Woody’s girlfriend in a local river. Image:  Manila Police Dept.

Police in Manila say 22-year-old U.S citizens Mir Islam and Troy Woody Jr., 21, booked an Uber to pick them up at Woody’s condominium in Mandaluyong City, and when the driver arrived the two men stuffed a large box into the trunk of the vehicle.

According to the driver, Islam and Woody asked to be driven to a nearby shopping mall, but told the driver along the way to stop at a compound near the Pasig River in Manila, where the two men allegedly dumped the box before getting back in the Uber.

The Inquirier reports that authorities recovered the box and identified the victim as Tomi Michelle Masters, 23, also a U.S. citizen from Indiana who was reportedly dating Woody and living in the same condo. Masters’ Instagram profile states that she was in a relationship with Woody.

Brooklyn, NY native Islam, a.k.a. “Josh the God,” has a long rap sheet for computer-related crimes. He briefly rose to Internet infamy as one of the core members of UGNazi, an online mischief-making group that claimed credit for hacking and attacking a number of high-profile Web sites.

On June 25, 2012, Islam and nearly two-dozen others were caught up in an FBI dragnet dubbed Operation Card Shop. The government accused Islam of being a founding member of carders[dot]org — a credit card fraud forum — trafficking in stolen credit card information, and possessing information for more than 50,000 credit cards.

JoshTheGod’s (Mir Islam’s ) Twitter feed, in April 2012 warning fellow carding forum carderprofit members that the forum was being run by the FBI.

In June 2016, Islam was sentenced to a year in prison for an impressive array of crimes, including stalking people online and posting their personal data on the Internet. Islam also pleaded guilty to reporting phony bomb threats and fake hostage situations at the homes of celebrities and public officials (as well as this author).

At that 2016 sentencing, Islam’s lawyer argued that his client suffered from multiple psychological disorders, and that he and his co-conspirators orchestrated the swattings of a sense of “anarchic libertarianism.”

Islam was let out of prison under supervised release before serving the whole sentence, but soon was back inside after violating the terms of his release. Earlier this year, Islam filed a typosquatting lawsuit from prison that named Woody Jr. In that bizarre handwritten complaint (PDF), Islam refers to Woody variously as “TJ” and “Josh,” and says the two men were best friends and have known each other for eight years.

An anti-cybersquatting domain dispute filed by Mir Islam earlier this year while in jail. In it, Islam refers to Woody as “TJ” and says the two have been best friends for years.

Troy Woody Jr. describes himself as an “early crypto investor,” but sources say Woody — like Islam — was a core member of the UGNazi group who went by the nicknames “MrOsama,” and “Everlife.” His Instagram profile suggests he was in a relationship with Ms. Masters. Both are pictured in the first of the three large photos below, taken from Woody’s Instagram account.

The Instagram profile of Troy Woody Jr., a.k.a. “titled,” and “MrOsama,” one of two Americans arrested today for allegedly dumping a woman’s body in a Manila river. The woman pictured on the left is believed to the victim, identified as Woody’s condo roommate, Tomi Michelle Masters, 23.

People are innocent in proven guilty in a court of law, at least in the United States. But I can’t say any of this surprises me. Most I’ve encountered who were involved serial swatting and stalking attacks definitely had a few screws loose and were fairly scary individuals. Case in point: Tyler Barriss, the 25-year-old admitted serial swatter and stalker who pleaded guilty to a swatting attack last year that ended with police shooting and killing an innocent, unarmed man.