Police investigating ‘criminals for hire’ links to antisemitic attacks

Australian authorities are investigating whether “criminals for hire” have committed a series of antisemitic attacks after being paid in cryptocurrency by overseas groups to firebomb buildings and spread fear among Jewish Australians, amid signs that organised crime is involved.

Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw revealed on Wednesday that the investigators were examining whether some of the perpetrators had been paid to carry out recent antisemitic attacks.

“We believe criminals for hire may be behind some incidents, so part of our inquiries include, who is paying those criminals, where those people are, whether they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is,” he said.

The remarks followed an escalating political dispute over the problem after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a national cabinet meeting on Tuesday and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton challenged the government to reveal what it knew about the attackers.

A day after he issued a written statement about the investigation, Kershaw went further by revealing the broader concerns within the AFP about criminals being hired to carry out attacks.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is also helping the investigation, along with other federal agencies, to check whether foreign governments, global terror groups, known extremist organisations or organised crime groups are behind some of the payments.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a joint press conference with NSW Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“There is still a lot of investigative work to be done, and we are not ready to rule anything in or out,” Kershaw said in Parliament House.

The concerns about “criminals for hire” date back to Operation Ironside, which the AFP launched four years ago after gaining access to encrypted communications at organised crime groups with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.

Those concerns grew during Operation Kraken, when the AFP worked with French authorities to intercept communications and prevent 50 threats to kill or harm.

Authorities believe the tactics from other cases – such as using low-level criminals to firebomb tobacco shops or intimidate people – are now being used to fund and organise antisemitic attacks.

A key obstacle to the investigation is the challenge of tracing money when the criminal suspects use cryptocurrency, which means police cannot be sure about the size of payments or the source of funds. Another factor is the challenge of knowing whether the source of the payments is overseas or at home, making it hard for authorities to say with precision that the attacks are being ordered by foreigners or Australians.

However, authorities have seen the way minor criminals have been employed in the past by organised crime or state actors overseas, given claims by French prosecutors that Russian intelligence agencies were behind antisemitic attacks in that country.

Agencies in the Five Eyes security partners – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand – have contributed information to the Australian investigation but some of this cannot be used as evidence in a prosecution because it comes from intelligence services.

Officials within the government have cautioned against assumptions that a foreign government is paying for the antisemitic attacks or that money is coming from listed terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Authorities are looking at organised crime groups but are not ruling out the other options such as foreign states or terror groups.

The AFP has about 200 staff overseas, including in Jordan and other locations in the Middle East, and it has worked regularly with authorities in Israel.

Albanese said earlier that some involved in the antisemitic attacks appear to have been paid to commit hate crimes. “Five Eyes are playing a role,” he said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson demanded more detail on the suggestion from the AFP that foreign actors might be behind the attacks.

Paterson said it was incumbent on the government to explain any intelligence that could substantiate such serious claims of foreign interference, questioning the police’s decision to float the prospect without providing evidence.

“It is not good enough for the federal government to disclose this with such limited information which will only further alarm a besieged community,” Paterson said.

Opposition home affairs spokesperson James Paterson with leader Peter Dutton.Credit: Justin McManus

“If a foreign government is responsible this would amount to acts of state-sponsored terror and one of the most serious national security crises we have faced in peacetime.”

The AFP has been under pressure to explain the lack of arrests over incidents such as the Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke rebuked Paterson for demanding more information on the investigation, describing his opposition counterpart’s demand as naive.

“The Australian Federal Police will have very deliberate reasons for what they put out in the public and when they do it, and they operate independently as they should,” Burke said.

Albanese rejected the repeated criticism from the Israeli government that Australia’s support in the United Nations for a ceasefire, and its criticisms of Israel, had contributed to rising antisemitism in Australia.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel on Wednesday told the ABC: “The attitude of the current Australian government towards Israel is inflaming a lot of these emotions and giving, I guess, some acceptance when you do not fight it.”

Albanese said this criticism “denies [the] agency of the actual perpetrators”.

“It is an attempt to turn away from those people engaged in these hate crimes towards it being a political issue,” he said. “I tell you what should happen. Australia should come together, not look for difference.”

So far, the arrests that have been made include a 44-year-old western Sydney man charged with making threats online to kill Jewish leaders. A 34-year-old woman from western Sydney, Tammie Farrugia, was charged after police found she allegedly sought jerrycans in the lead up to an antisemitic attack in Woollahra on December 11. On Wednesday morning, a man was charged for allegedly attempting to set fire to a synagogue in Newtown in Sydney’s inner west earlier this month.

ASIO raised the terror threat level from possible to probable in August based in part on tension stemming from the war in Gaza, with spy chief Mike Burgess warning of new mixes of “twisted” ideologies – including anti-government conspiracy theories, racism, Islamist extremism and neo-Nazism – blending with social media-fuelled personal grievance, intolerance, loneliness and mental ill health.

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