Australian detectives are investigating whether foreign actors are paying criminals to commit anti-Semitic attacks in the country, police said yesterday.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw was meeting with state police chiefs to discuss an increase in anti-Semitic crime in Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023.
“We believe criminals-for-hire may be behind some incidents,” Kershaw told reporters in Canberra. “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.”
Photo:AP
He did not take questions from reporters.
Kershaw on Tuesday told federal and state government leaders in a briefing on anti-Semitism that detectives were investigating 15 serious allegations of anti-Semitic crime.
“We are looking into whether overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs,” Kershaw said after Tuesday’s meeting. “We are looking at if — or how — they have been paid, for example in cryptocurrency, which can take longer to identify.”
Police were also investigating whether young people were involved in anti-Semitism, and if they had been radicalized online and encouraged to commit anti-Semitic acts, he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday declined to comment on who might be paying for anti-Semitic crime in Australia.
“It is important that people understand where some of these attacks are coming from and it would appear ... that some of these are being perpetrated by people who don’t have a particular issue, aren’t motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors,” Albanese told reporters.
An arson and graffiti attack on a childcare center near a Sydney synagogue on Tuesday was the latest in a spate of targeted attacks in Australia’s largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population.
The fires and other attacks have targeted buildings, businesses and vehicles.
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