Fortnite player arrested by FBI after Epic Games reports voice chat threats
The arrest followed Epic Games' voluntary disclosure of audio captured by Fortnite's voice reporting system.
A Fortnite player who allegedly threatened to shoot FBI agents was arrested after Epic Games handed over his voice chat recordings to federal investigators.
Edward Lee Frith, 29, of Alabama, was arrested on September 23, 2026, three days after Epic made a voluntary emergency disclosure to the FBI, according to a federal affidavit.
The affidavit states that Epic provided information for an account using the name WagesOfNinja, which investigators connected to Frith.
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 also allegedly spoke about wanting to murder someone and potentially killing a police officer and himself if arrested.
An FBI agent reviewed the audio recordings supplied by Epic and confirmed the statements quoted in the affidavit were accurately transcribed.
Frith was indicted on September 23 on an interstate threatening communications charge and pleaded not guilty the following day.
A detention order on September 29 remanded him to a corrections facility pending a trial expected in December.
The audio was captured by Fortnite's voice reporting system, which keeps a rolling five minutes of voice chat on a player's device.
Epic Games says it cannot access that audio unless reporting is enabled and a participant submits a report.
When a report is filed, the last five minutes of audio are sent to Epic's moderators.
The company's systems look for high-harm talk, such as threats of real-world violence, self-harm and child endangerment, and confirmed cases can be escalated to law enforcement.
Epic provided account information and disclosed that the WagesOfNinja account had been accessed more than 1,700 times from IP addresses geolocating to Alabama.
Fortnite added voice reporting on November 16, 2023.
The case moved from an in-game report to a federal indictment in about 72 hours.
Federal prosecutors have to prove a "true threat," meaning a serious statement of intent to commit violence against a person or group.
Since the Supreme Court decided Counterman v. Colorado in 2023, they also have to show the speaker was at least reckless about how his words would be understood.
In a previous case, Jayden Griffin, a 19-year-old from South Dakota, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to sending death threats to Epic Games staff between October and November 2024.
Griffin faced the same charge and the same five-year maximum sentence, and told the court, "I intended for the messages to be viewed as a threat at the time that I sent the messages."
Players 18 and older can choose to turn voice reporting "Off When Possible" under Settings, then Communication, then Voice Reporting, though it remains on in public Game Channels.
Players under 18 cannot turn it off but can mute themselves or switch voice chat off.
Parents can add more limits with Fortnite parental controls.
The details in the affidavit were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
