The Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police made a dramatic revelation on March 10: A wave of serious arson and vandalism attacks against Jewish Sydney area targets, including a supposed explosive-filled caravan plot, was allegedly part of an organized crime ring’s plan to distract law enforcement and obtain reduced prison sentences in exchange for aiding in the police’s investigation.
Organized criminals had allegedly sought to exploit escalating antisemitism in Australia since the October 7 massacre to sow disorder with at least 15 different attacks, including the January 19 Dural incident in which an explosive-filled caravan and documents indicating potential Jewish communal targets were uncovered in a Sydney suburb.
The Dural plot was dubbed a “con job” by law enforcement. The announcement upended preconceptions about the spike in antisemitism. Law enforcement emphasized that while the attacks were not motivated by antisemitism, the Jewish community had still suffered.
Jewish community groups also had to issue statements explaining that this didn’t diminish how Australian Jews had been targeted and that not all attacks in the last 18 months had been con jobs.
Yet the con job narrative was brought into question on Tuesday with the announcement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) that Iran had orchestrated two antisemitic attacks in Australia: the December 6, 2024, Adass Israel Synagogue arson attack in Melbourne and the October 20, 2024, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen arson attack in Sydney.
The arrests related to the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen were supposedly part of the con job crime ring. Two men were arrested in the March sweep, one of whom allegedly directed the arson.
Former gang leader Sayed Moosawi had first sent two men to the Curly Lewis Brewery to set it on fire, in what seemed to be a mistake by the man who communicated with contracted arsonists under the pseudonym “James Bond.”
Three days later, the similarly named kosher Lewis’ Continental Kitchen was set ablaze by two other men.
If the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen arson was both part of the March 10 network and also directed by Iran, according to the Tuesday revelations, then the designs behind the other con job incidents may also be brought into question.
The Jewish community in Australia is owed an apology
ASIO Director-General of Security Mike Burgess said during a Tuesday press briefing that it was likely that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind other attacks and had used organized criminal elements to obscure its own involvement.
Perhaps Iranian involvement had been concealed to such an extent that it led the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to declare that while foreign criminal elements were involved, no foreign state actors were suspected.
Yet perhaps this was more subterfuge from Australian authorities. The Dural caravan was discovered on January 19 and was revealed to the public on January 29.
Though the AFP suspected from the beginning that the Dural matter was a hoax, this was only revealed on March 10, once law enforcement felt they had advanced far enough in their investigation.
Yet Burgess revealed that ASIO, the AFP, and foreign partners had been investigating their suspicions since October.
Albanese and the AFP had also said on January 22 that authorities were investigating if foreign actors were funding local criminals to commit the wave of antisemitic arson and vandalism attacks in the country.
Albanese said he was informed by an officer that some of the antisemitic attacks were being committed by perpetrators who lacked ideological motivation but may have been “paid actors.” This theory was seemingly put to rest when the “con job” crime ring was revealed.
In a statement thanking ASIO, the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies referenced the con job theory, adding that it was looking forward to learning the full extent of Iran’s activities.
“Those who sought to downplay the threat against the Jewish community or dismiss the campaign of terror targeting our community as a criminal con job or hoax owe the Jewish community an apology,” the board said on Tuesday.
“Our community firstly had to endure a summer of terror and then had salt rubbed in our collective wound through gaslighting and equivocation from some quarters about the extent of the threat. These were serious antisemitic attacks on the Jewish community, and there should be no further equivocation.”
The NSW Police didn’t respond to queries from The Jerusalem Post about whether it still believed there was a “con job” or if the theory had been altered, directing all questions relating to the IRGC investigation to other Commonwealth bodies.
It remains to be seen if ASIO or the Australian government will explain where the con job ended and the IRGC plot began and which acts of vandalism and arson were just criminals taking advantage of the situation and which were part of an Iranian campaign of terror.