Antisemitic terror plot in Australia was fake and staged by a crime boss, police say

At first glance, when police discovered a camper vehicle packed with explosives and containing a list of Jewish targets near Sydney, Australia on Jan. 19, it appeared that they had foiled an unprecedented antisemitic terror plot.

Indeed, police led the public to believe that’s what had happened, an impression that was maintained for weeks. In a press briefing on Monday, however, police revealed that the supposed terrorist plot was an elaborate hoax, allegedly concocted by an unidentified crime boss as part of an effort to influence his own prosecution.

As it turns out, investigators almost immediately suspected that the danger in this case might not be real. Police had been tipped off about the camper, and the explosives were in plain sight. They would have made for a major bomb — but had not been rigged for detonation.

Whatever was going on, police felt the situation warranted a serious investigation: Operation Kissinger was launched. The team behind the operation grew to include local and federal law enforcement, counterterrorism forces and representatives from the country’s intelligence agency.

Uncertain of its significance, police hoped to keep the discovery of the explosives-laden camper and the ensuing investigation quiet. For fear of word getting out, they kept top officials out of the loop, including Australia’s prime minister, attorney general and National Security Committee. 

The police withheld the news even as they announced a major revelation from a larger investigation into an ongoing wave of antisemitic attacks that were smaller but still serious. For months, Jews in Sydney and Melbourne had been subjected to daily threats, waking up almost every morning to a fresh horror: a synagogue had been firebombed. And a childcare center. Graffiti. Harassment. Arson at the homes of community leaders.

The new revelation in those attacks concerned suspects arrested by Strike Force Pearl, a police operation launched in December to protect the Jewish community. None of the suspects, police said on Jan. 21, appeared to be motivated by ideology or antisemitic hate. They were petty criminals paid by someone overseas, perhaps via cryptocurrency, to carry out the attacks.

It was a shocking twist in the drama, generating speculation and conspiracy theories. Who was funding this reign of terror? Some said Iran, targeting Jews as payback against Israel. Others thought China could be trying to destabilize a Western country relatively close to its borders.

Some in Australia’s pro-Palestinian camp suggested Israel was behind the attacks, perhaps to stoke fear and undermine Australia’s Labor government, which had been seen as insufficiently supportive of Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza. Israeli leaders had been signaling their dissatisfaction with vociferous public statements about events in Australia.

Meanwhile, the secret of the camper’s discovery lasted only 10 days. Someone leaked it to the press, and officials finally made an announcement on Jan. 29. But even as police privately concluded that the terrorism plot was perhaps not what it seemed, officials publicly acted with certainty as if it were. They noted the list of Jewish targets in the camper and said there was enough explosive material inside to cause a 130-foot blast wave. 

“This is the discovery of a potential mass casualty event. There’s only one way of calling it out, and that is terrorism,” Chris Minns, the premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, where Sydney is located, said at the time. “This would strike terror into the community, particularly the Jewish community, and it must be met with the full resources of the government.”

It did strike terror into the Jewish community, amplifying concerns about who could be behind the attacks.

A detonation outside a synagogue during worship services could have led to mass casualties. The local Jewish community had almost come to expect such a scenario due to the ongoing wave of violent attacks on their institutions.

“This is undoubtedly the most severe threat to the Jewish community in Australia to date,” the Zionist Federation of Australia said in a statement at the time. “The plot, if executed, would likely have resulted in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil.”

And Israel’s foreign minister issued a condemnation. “We expect the Australian government to do more to stop this disease!” Gideon Sa’ar said swiftly after police announced the camper’s discovery. 

The most notable thing that happened next was that the mysterious antisemitic attacks stopped. Feb. 2 was when the last significant attack took place, according to police officials, who credited law enforcement actions, including dozens of arrests.

But before the Jewish community could begin to let its guard down, a different type of antisemitic incident scandalized Australia. Two nurses at a Sydney hospital were captured in a viral video on Feb. 12 claiming they would kill or refuse to treat Israeli patients. Both had their licenses revoked and were eventually arrested on charges of threatening violence. For many Australian Jews, the public admission of violent intent by the two nurses vindicated their fears of mistreatment by healthcare workers who are Muslim or pro-Palestinian.

Soon afterward, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the country’s FBI equivalent, spoke of violent antisemitism gripping the country, and said, “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.” The remarks were made as part of the agency’s annual threat assessment, which warned about rising foreign interference and politically motivated violence.

The jeopardy that Australian Jews, who number about 100,000, face comes amid a backdrop of tensions triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which involved taking hostages and the indiscriminate killing of civilians, and led to the ongoing war in Gaza. As in the United States, much of the Jewish community has rallied in support of Israel, while also becoming a target of pro-Palestinian activism, which has sometimes come in illegal and antisemitic forms. Last year, for example, brought the mass doxxing of Jewish academics and creative professionals. And over the weekend, someone graffitied the words “Israel is evil” on the facade of a Jewish bakery in Melbourne.

Monday’s news conference on Operation Kissinger, revealing the camper bomb plot was fake, was meant to offset some of the Jewish community’s anxiety.

“We are at a point in the investigation where we feel it’s very important to come out and provide comfort to the Jewish community,” Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police’s deputy commissioner for national security, told the news conference. “The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.”

Barrett said police considered sharing this assessment with the public earlier but waited “out of an abundance of caution” as other tips about terror plots continued to arrive.

There appears to be one person in the organized crime world directing the perpetrators of the antisemitic attacks, and that person remains at large, according to Barrett.

“We believe the person pulling the strings wanted changes to their criminal status but maintained a distance from their scheme and hired alleged local criminals,” Barrett said.

She described a growing “criminal gig economy” that’s being used to divert police attention or to stage threats and barter information on them for leniency from prosecutors. In one instance, police caught a prisoner last year “trying to secure high-powered weapons for a fake terror plot so he could provide information to authorities in exchange for a reduction to his drug trafficking sentence.”

Officials acknowledged that whatever the motivations behind it, the fake plot has hurt the Jewish community.

“This twisted self-serving criminality has terrorized Jewish Australians,” Barrett said. “What organized crime has done to the Jewish community is reprehensible, and it won’t go without consequences.”

The new revelations are not bringing much relief, according to Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

“The possible role of organized crime in orchestrating major antisemitic attacks adds a chilling new element to the antisemitism crisis,” he said in a statement. “Synagogues have been burned, childcare centers have been burned, and whether it’s been done for financial gain or as part of an antisemitic ideology or movement, in either case, it’s equally terrifying.”