‘James Bond’ enlists local criminals in botched Sydney Jewish deli attack

Two men charged by NSW Police’s anti-Semitic task force were seemingly paid by an unknown criminal referred to as ‘James Bond’ to carry out a firebombing on a Bondi brewery they mistook for a Jewish deli with a similar name | WATCH

Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher deli in Bondi, was torched in October. Picture: Monique Harmer

Two Sydney men charged by NSW Police’s anti-Semitism task force were seemingly hired by an unknown nefarious criminal referred to as “James Bond” to carry out a firebombing on a Bondi brewery they mistook for a Jewish deli with a similar name.

After realising they may have inadvertently torched a different Bondi establishment that shared a “Lewis” in its name with the deli, the attackers said: “I’m starting to think he (James Bond) has sent us to the wrong place lol”.

Political debate raged on Wednesday after the Australian Federal Police said it was exploring whether “overseas actors” had enlisted local criminals to carry out anti-Semitic attacks, something which the federal Coalition demanded more evidence, with intelligence since suggesting Australia-based organised crime gangs could have paid perpetrators behind recent attacks.

The Australian can reveal footage of Curly Lewis brewery in Bondi being set alight after the two criminals, appearing to take orders from an unknown Australia-based man via encrypted messaging platform Signal, seemingly mistook the business for the nearby kosher deli of a similar name, which was firebombed days later.

Authorities are attempting to understand who may be orchestrating and funding some of the attacks behind the scenes, with this latest revelation only furthering authorities’ belief that some perpetrators may be criminals for hire.

On October 17, Bondi’s Curly Lewis brewery was set alight, sustaining about $80,000 in damages. A few days later, on October 20, the Jewish-run kosher deli, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, was torched a kilometre away from the brewery.

NSW Police’s Strike Force Pearl – established to “investigate hate crimes with an anti-Semitic focus” – charged Guy Finnegan and co-accused Craig Bantoft, 37, before arresting and charging a 40-year-old and 26-year-old in January for their involvement in the incidents.

The force have linked the two fires and four men, with the brewery torched in a case of “mistaken identity”, with the deli the intended target. After the pair torched the brewery – Finnegan and Bantoft poured petrol under its front door, before then throwing lit paper, which set it alight – they conversed on encrypted messaging chat Signal, revealing they had taken the orders from the unknown man under the alias “James Bond”.

CCTV footage shows Bantoft and Finnegan mistakenly setting the Curly Lewis Brewery in Bondi alight.

“James Bond” had told Finnegan and Bantoft that they’d “f..ked it up”, and that the target was barely burnt.

“Use f..ked the whole thing now... If use f..king couldn’t do it from the start then why did use even went there for f..k me – its not even done 2% burned f..k me dead (sic),” Bond said.

Finnegan told Bantoft that “(James Bond) reckons there’s no damage,” suggesting they return to the scene and take pictures.

Describing the pictures James Bond had sent him of the morning after the attack, possibly of an un-torched Continental Kitchen, Finnegan told Bantoft: “People are packing out the place like nothing happened… open shop, like there was never any fire”.

“I’m copping from him messages like wtf, you’d didn’t even do it,” Finnegan told Bantoft, who asked if they had hit “the right place”.

Bantoft asked Finnegan whether “(James Bond) is paying us or nah”, who responded: “I’m starting to think he has sent us to the wrong place lol.”

Asked if he could determine by the pictures if they’d been sent to the right place, Finnegan said that he couldn’t exactly tell.

“It (being sent to the wrong place, targeting the wrong business) makes sense haha,” he said.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb, left, and Premier Chris Minns at a Sydney press conference on Wednesday. Picture: Nikki Short

The pair were captured on CCTV and NSW Police arrested both soon after, with Finnegan and Bantoft making “full admissions” to the offending and investigators discovering a screenshot of the Signal chat with ‘James Bond’ upon seizing the former’s mobile phone.

On Tuesday, Finnegan was sentenced to an aggregate 18-month custodial sentence, backdated to October 2024, for 10 offences including an indicative 10-month sentence for destroying property.

His other offences included common assault, fraud, theft, larceny and drug possession.

NSW Premier Chris Minns slammed the 10-month indicative sentence given to Finnegan, saying the too-lenient a punishment was not a strong-enough deterrent, a court ruling police are now appealing.

“(That offence) carries a 10-year jail sentence and the individual was handed a 10-month sentence … NSW Police are appealing that sentence,” Mr Minns said, adding that the short sentence sent the “wrong message”.

“We need to send a strong and unambiguous message that you will face the full force of the law and the book will be thrown at (you).”

On Wednesday, Bantoft pleaded guilty to one charge of destroying property and a second of doing so alongside Finnegan, and will be sentenced in March.

He also pled guilty to unrelated charges of larceny and contravening an apprehended violence order.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw, left.

Neither man has been charged with anti-Semitic or vilification offences, but both were investigated and slapped with charges by Strike Force Pearl, established to focus on attacks of anti-Semitic nature.

The strike force has since doubled its investigative team to 40 full-time detectives.

Bantoft allegedly committed October’s firebombing while already serving an intensive correction order, and has a litany of prior convictions, including theft, destroying property, common assaults, and choking a person, among others.

Speaking on Tuesday, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s legal head, Simone Abel, said that while anti-Semitism targeted the Jewish community the entire Australian society would feel its effects.

“Anti-Semitism is a disease that doesn’t hit just the Jewish community but the entire of society,” she said, referring to how Maroubra’s Only About Children centre, which isn’t Jewish-linked, was firebombed and vandalised with anti-Semitic slurs.