diff --git a/app/controllers/api/v2/search_controller.rb b/app/controllers/api/v2/search_controller.rb
index f17431dd1..a30560133 100644
--- a/app/controllers/api/v2/search_controller.rb
+++ b/app/controllers/api/v2/search_controller.rb
@@ -11,6 +11,10 @@ class Api::V2::SearchController < Api::BaseController
   def index
     @search = Search.new(search_results)
     render json: @search, serializer: REST::SearchSerializer
+  rescue Mastodon::SyntaxError
+    unprocessable_entity
+  rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound
+    not_found
   end
 
   private
diff --git a/app/lib/search_query_transformer.rb b/app/lib/search_query_transformer.rb
index c685d7b6f..aef05e9d9 100644
--- a/app/lib/search_query_transformer.rb
+++ b/app/lib/search_query_transformer.rb
@@ -88,14 +88,14 @@ class SearchQueryTransformer < Parslet::Transform
       case prefix
       when 'from'
         @filter = :account_id
-        username, domain = term.split('@')
-        account = Account.find_remote(username, domain)
 
-        raise "Account not found: #{term}" unless account
+        username, domain = term.gsub(/\A@/, '').split('@')
+        domain           = nil if TagManager.instance.local_domain?(domain)
+        account          = Account.find_remote!(username, domain)
 
         @term = account.id
       else
-        raise "Unknown prefix: #{prefix}"
+        raise Mastodon::SyntaxError
       end
     end
   end
diff --git a/lib/exceptions.rb b/lib/exceptions.rb
index eb472abaa..0c677b660 100644
--- a/lib/exceptions.rb
+++ b/lib/exceptions.rb
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ module Mastodon
   class StreamValidationError < ValidationError; end
   class RaceConditionError < Error; end
   class RateLimitExceededError < Error; end
+  class SyntaxError < Error; end
 
   class UnexpectedResponseError < Error
     attr_reader :response