Fortnite player arrested by FBI after Epic Games report his voice chat threats

A Fortnite player who wondered aloud whether the FBI would show up at his door was arrested after Epic Games handed his threats to federal investigators.

According to a federal affidavit, Alabama resident Edward Lee Frith allegedly said: “Let’s see if the FBI is going to show up at my door because I’ll shoot them motherf**kers too.”

He soon got an answer to the FBI part. The agency arrested the 29-year-old on September 23, three days after Epic reported his statements.

Epic handed voice chat recordings to the FBI

The affidavit states that Epic Games made a voluntary emergency disclosure to the FBI on September 20 concerning a player using the name WagesOfNinja.

Epic provided account information, while investigators used records to connect the account to Frith. The company also disclosed that the account had been accessed more than 1,700 times from IP addresses geolocating to Alabama.

Epic Games

The alleged statements went beyond the threat against FBI agents. Frith also allegedly spoke about wanting to murder someone and potentially killing a police officer and himself if arrested.

An FBI agent said he reviewed audio recordings supplied to investigators and confirmed that the statements quoted in the affidavit were accurately transcribed.

According to Aftermath, Frith was indicted on September 23 on an interstate threatening communications charge and entered his not guilty plea the following day. A September 29 detention order remanded him to a corrections facility pending trial, which was expected in December.

The affidavit does not explain exactly how Epic first obtained the recordings. However, Fortnite’s voice reporting system captures the latest five minutes of chat on players’ devices when enabled. Submitting a report sends that audio to Epic’s moderators.

Epic says it cannot access that voice chat audio unless reporting is enabled and a participant submits a report.