Australia police say that seemingly anti -Semitic incidents of terrorism were really a “criminal job” for sowing chaos

A trailer filled with explosives that Australian politicians earlier described as anti -Semitic terrorism and a namut mass event of sacrificing criminals in complicated frauds and should never have been detonated, police said on Monday.

The laws of laws explored the January discovery of the trailer on the outskirts of Sydneya have announced at a press conference that her place was invented by criminals who wanted to achieve a personal gain from overturning power to his presence – a bizarre turn in the Saga that followed a months -long wave of antisema in Australia.

A set of attacks in places where Jewish people live, work and study, including a a fiery part of the synagogue Both kindergarten and several cases of anti -Semitic vandalism have been committed by “a very small group, and potentially an individual behind all these questions,” said Deputy Police Commissioner of the New South Wales State, David Hudson on Monday.

In January, the authorities presented an unusual claim that none of the 12 who then arrested in relation to a series of crimes in the largest Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne were guided by anti -Semitic ideology and instead were criminals for rent. Hudson said that 14 more arrested on Monday was not motivated by hatred.

But he added that he had no doubt that anti-Semitism in Australia-Koji dominated the newspaper media and the political sphere after a recent series of crimes-made “escalation in the last 18 months” of October 7, 2023, a terrorist attack under the guidance of Hamas to Israel War in Gaza.

Preliminary data published by the Executive Council of the Australian Judaism just months after the attack showed that in October and November 2023, 662 anti -Semitic incidents throughout Australia were reported.

“In comparison, 495 anti-Jewish incidents were reported in Australia in Australia for 12 months until September 30, 2023,” the Council said at that time.

In response to an increase in such incidents, Australia passed new laws In January 2024, explicitly banning the performance of the Nazi greeting in the public and the display or sale of Nazi hate symbols like a swastika. New laws have also made an act of glory or praise of terrorist acts with a criminal offense.

“Basically a criminal job”

But many incidents appear to be part of a complex criminal fraud, and are not really rooted in anti -Semitism.

Revelation – leaked to the public before the police implementation planned to announce – that in January trailers were found outside Sydney, full of explosives used in the mining industry and contained a list of alleged Jewish goals, made state and national leaders to say that it was a escalation in a potential extremist violation.

But on Monday, investigators said that “almost immediately” believed that the appearance of the trailer was “part of a fictional terrorist conspiracy, basically a criminal job”, but kept their doubts in secret, said the Deputy Commissioner of Australian Federal Police Krissy Barrett.

The trailer is easily found and explosives are visibly shown. “Also, there was no detonator,” Barrett said, adding that “he will never cause a mass event.”

Instead, those who inspected the caravan planned to inform the authorities about the upcoming attack against Jewish Australians, Barrett said. Why investigators believed they did it not easy.

Motivation, overseas interests and culprit still as a whole

Barrett and Hudson, speaking on behalf of the joint effort to implement the law, gathered to arrest the perpetrators of anti -Semitic crimes, they said they believed that those who faked the plot of the trailer who needed to attract the attention of the government, the diverting of police resources, the creation of fear and exploiting the situation for personal benefit. This could include attempts to use an attack information on negotiating with the police for a lesser sentence in another criminal proceedings.

“We believe that a person who pulls the wires wanted changes in their criminal status, but retained the distance from their scheme and hired alleged local criminals,” Barrett said. That person stays at large, she added.

Authorities have announced since January that they believe that in foreign interests they have orchestrated crimes, although they were not more concrete. They also did not discover what local criminal groups could be hired to take the attacks, which included hate graffiti.

It’s not the only time that happened, Barrett added. “Too many perpetrators who work in an economical economy accept these money tasks,” she said.

14 people arrested on Monday are facing accusations over more than a dozen attacks that investigators believe they are orchestrated.

The strange turn covers the summer where anti -Semitic crimes developed Sydney and Melbourne, home 85% of the Australian Jewish population. One person was physically injured – a worshiper who suffered burns in a fire that was set up in a synagogue in Melbourne in December.

There was “some consolation of the Jewish community”, in the fact that the worst episodes were not ideological acts of hatred, Hudson said. But the crimes had a “chilling effect on the Jewish community” and caused unjustified doubt on other groups, Barrett added.

High attacks are not the only police investigating. Almost 200 more people have been accused since October 2023. In the country of New South Wales, where Sydney is, with crimes associated with anti -Semitism, police said Associated Press in February.