Federal police say a caravan with explosives found in Sydney earlier this year was “never going to cause a mass casualty event” and was a “fake terrorism plot”.
The Australian federal police deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said on Monday investigators now believed the caravan incident was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.
“We are now confident these tip-offs were fabricated and the caravan plot was an elaborate scheme contrived by organised criminals domestically and from offshore,” Barrett said.
“This twisted self-serving criminality has terrorised Jewish Australians. What organised crime has [allegedly] done to the Jewish community is reprehensible and it won’t go without consequences.”
The NSW police deputy commissioner David Hudson said Strike Force Pearl officers conducted 11 search warrants on Monday and arrested a further 14 people as part of their investigations into antisemitic attacks across Sydney. None of those arrested were directly linked to the “caravan job”, he said.
The deputy commissioner said “organised crime elements” were behind the attacks to “further their own causes”. None of those arrested had displayed any antisemitic ideology, Hudson alleged.
Guardian Australia understands authorities believe there is one individual pulling the strings at the top of a chain of command, with a second layer below them of other individuals involved in organised crime, who are soliciting locals to carry out acts.
The motivation is understood to be both to distract police and divert their resources away from organised crime, as well as to create plots that incarcerated criminals can use to tip off law enforcement as a gesture to reduce their sentences.
The “caravan job” could have been devised as a plan for someone to receive a reduced sentence by supplying information about a potential threat, police suggested.
Of the 14 arrested in raids on Monday morning, a 33-year-old man was arrested at a Wentworthville unit and later charged with two counts of intentionally damaging property in company, larceny and driving while disqualified. Police will allege he spray painted graffiti on motor vehicles and properties in the Sydney suburbs of Randwick and Kingsford on 2 February.
A 40-year-old man in Penshurst, in Sydney’s south, was also arrested as part of Monday’s raids, charged with driving a motor vehicle during a disqualification period, take and drive conveyance without consent of owner and participating in criminal group, among other charges. Police will allege he spray painted graffiti at a home and school in Maroubra, a shopping centre at Eastgardens and a home at Eastlakes.
Both men were refused bail.
Others arrested on Monday include those who police will allege directed arson attacks at Bondi Beach in October 2024.
A 27-year-old woman was also arrested on Monday morning at Eastlakes, with charges including possessing prohibited drugs and possessing or using a prohibited weapon. She was granted bail.
A couple allegedly named on a police warrant as part of the investigation into the caravan was previously charged in relation to a separate alleged arson and graffiti attack in Sydney’s east.
NSW police in mid-February charged Scott Marshall, 36, over an incident in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra on 11 December last year when an allegedly stolen car was set alight and anti-Israel graffiti was painted on cars, buildings and a footpath.
Marshall’s partner, Tammie Farrugia, 34, was charged in mid-January in relation to the Woollahra incident. She was accused of participating in a criminal group and damaging property.
Marshall was arrested in Parklea prison last month – where he was being held on remand on unrelated charges – and charged with allegedly participating in a criminal group to contribute to criminal activity; destroying or damaging property as an accessory before the fact; and taking and driving a vehicle without the consent of the owner.
NSW police allege Marshall and Farrugia were “involved in preparing” the car and jerry cans ahead of the Woollahra attack.
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The head of Strike Force Pearl told reporters in mid-February that the alleged “principal offenders” behind the 11 December incident had not been arrested.
Neither Faruggia nor Marshall have been charged in relation to the caravan and Guardian Australia does not suggest any wrongdoing on their part.
The president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, David Ossip, said the incidents in recent months “had a chilling effect” on the Jewish community, even though police allege antisemitism was not a motivation of those arrested so far.
“The findings of this investigation should not in any way diminish the summer of fear and anxiety which the Jewish community experienced or the vicious nature of the attacks which included the attempted arson of Synagogues and the firebombing of a childcare centre,” Ossip said. “Nor should it take away from the record levels of antisemitism experienced over the past 18 months in Australia.”
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, and his police minister, Yasmin Catley, issued a joint statement on Monday afternoon, saying that despite the revelations the caravan plot was concocted, it had struck fear for the Jewish community.
“There is no mistake that these acts have wrought fear and anxiety in our Jewish community and we will not tolerate this, not now, not ever,” they said.
They said “a huge amount of resources” had been thrown at the investigations.
“These arrests are the culmination of dogged, round the clock police work and we congratulate the Strike Force Pearl detectives who for months have worked tirelessly to investigate these crimes and identify those allegedly responsible to put them before the courts,” the statement said.
Both Minns and Anthony Albanese had previously labelled the plot a potential terrorist event. Police on Monday revealed they had ruled the plot a fake scheme early on, but had not revealed this when the discovery of the caravan was initially made public so as to not compromise further investigations.
James Paterson, the shadow minister for home affairs and cybersecurity, wrote on X that “organised crime concocting terrorism plots targeting the Jewish community is an extremely serious matter”.
“National security ministers & the PM should have been promptly briefed, as the NSW Premier was. The government must now explain whether they were, & if not, why not.”
