On a sleepy road on the outskirts of Sydney sat a caravan that would make international headlines.
Inside, New South Wales police discovered enough explosives to cause a “potential mass causality event”, but no detonator. There was a list of Jewish sites and a note that included the words: “Fuck the Jews.”
It marked a significant escalation in a wave of antisemitic vandalism and arson attacks over the past months across Sydney.
Eleven people have been charged under Strike Force Pearl, which was set up to investigate hate crimes across Sydney, including one man charged on Friday evening with allegedly defacing a wall with Nazi symbols.
None have been charged in connection with the caravan. The Guardian does not suggest anyone charged over separate incidents has any connection to the caravan incident.
Speaking before the Friday arrest and about the 10 people charged up to that point, the NSW police deputy commissioner, David Hudson, last week said police had not identified any potential ideological motivation for any of the individuals.
“That indicates to us that they are being orchestrated in some manner,” Hudson speculated. It was possible the coordination was “domestic”. “We haven’t ruled anything out,” he said. “We are chasing every rabbit down every hole.”
Also speaking on Thursday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, again discussed the possibility that “people are being paid to commit crimes”.
The attacks
On 5 December, Melbourne’s oldest and largest synagogue was gutted by fire. So far no one has been arrested over the attack. It is being treated as an act of terrorism.
The torching of the Adass Israel synagogue seemed to trigger a wave of antisemitic vandalism. Most of it has targeted Sydney’s eastern suburbs where there is a significant Jewish community.
The vandalism has included anti-Israel statements and antisemitic graffiti. Two synagogues in Sydney were vandalised on 10 January and 11 January with swastikas and an attempt was made to set one on fire. No one has been arrested over the 10 January incident while two men have been charged in relation to the 11 January attack.
On 17 January, the former home of one of the most prominent spokespeople for Australia’s Jewish community – Alex Ryvchin – was splashed with red paint and two cars outside were set alight. One vehicle was graffitied with the words “Fuck Jews”.
Several days later, on 21 January, a childcare centre in Sydney’s east, which does not have religious affiliations but is located close to a synagogue, was subject to an arson attack and graffitied.
“I’m just tired, I just want it to stop. I am sick of waking up to find out something else has happened,” one Jewish parent told Guardian Australia on Friday.
Back in November, in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, a vehicle was allegedly destroyed by fire and nine cars and three buildings vandalised with anti-Israel messages. Three men have been arrested and charged.
There were also two alleged arson attacks against businesses in Bondi in October.
Guy Finnegan, 31, and Craig Bantoft, 37, have pleaded guilty to charges of damaging property in company by fire over a 17 October incident. Finnegan has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and Bantoft is awaiting sentencing.
Two other men are before the courts in relation to a separate alleged incident.
The caravan
On Wednesday, prompted by a story that had been leaked to the Daily Telegraph, NSW police said they became aware of the caravan containing explosives in Dural on 19 January.
Hudson said some people already charged in relation to separate incidents could be on the “periphery” of the caravan matter.
Timeline
Dural Caravan timeline
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A caravan is parked on the side of the road in Dural, a semi-rural suburb in Sydney’s north west.
A local resident, believing it was parked in a hazardous position for road users, towed the caravan to his property.
The van is padlocked. The man leaves it parked on his property.
The property owner busts open the caravan, to discover it contains explosives. He contacts police. He is not accused of any wrongdoing.
In addition to Powergel explosives capable of creating a 40-metre wide blast radius, in the caravan there is also a note containing the name of targets including a Sydney synagogue and remarks about Jews.
No detonator was found.
State and federal police launch a covert joint counterterrorism investigation.
At the time of the discovery, the registered owner of the caravan is in custody on separate matters related to weapons and drug charges.
Police raid properties, including a Dural address next to the property where the caravan had been towed. Another home in Sydney’s west is also raided.
Anthony Albanese convenes national cabinet to address “the shocking rise of antisemitic hate crimes”. Leaders agree to set up a national database, and federal police reveal foreign actors may be orchestrating recent attacks.
Details of the caravan are leaked and reported by The Daily Telegraph, which prompts New South Wales police and the premier, Chris Minns, to call a press conference. They make public the investigation into the “potential mass casualty event”.
Police have said a male who is the registered owner of the caravan is in custody on unrelated charges.
Scott Marshall and his partner, Tammie Farrugia, were named on a police search warrant as part of the investigation into the caravan. Neither have been charged in relation to the explosives in the caravan and the Guardian does not suggest any wrongdoing on their part.
Farrugia is in custody on remand for an alleged arson and alleged antisemitic graffiti attack in Woollahra in December. Among the charges, she is accused of allegedly participating in a criminal group with at least two others as an accessory before allegedly damaging three homes and a vehicle. Farrugia has not entered a plea.
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Marshall is in custody on remand on unrelated drugs and weapons charges which were investigated under the police operation dedicated to investigating antisemitism. He has pleaded not guilty, according to the ABC.
‘A level of coordination above them’
On Thursday, police said they had not identified any ideology for 10 of those charged that might have allegedly driven them to undertake antisemitic attacks.
“Based on other evidence that we’ve gleaned from our investigations it would indicate that there is a level of coordination above them,” Hudson said this week.
John Roose, an extremist expert at Deakin University, said it was important not to speculate beyond what was known.
But the people charged so far were “not your typical profile of an ideologically driven antisemitic attack”, Roose said.
“If they are being paid, then it speaks to needing to understand the motivation of the people who are paying them.”
So far there is only evidence in the public domain that two of those arrested might be getting paid: the two men convicted for attempting to burn down a Bondi brewery, Finnegan and Bantoft.
Court documents revealed messages between the pair where they discussed the hit. The conversation mainly centred around a person referred to under the covert name “James Bond” who had accused them of botching the job. One then questioned if they would still get paid.
A message from James Bond that Finnegan forwarded to Bantoft said: “Use fucked the whole thing now if use fucking couldn’t do it from the start then why did use even went there for fuck me it’s not even done 2% burned fuck me dead.”
In one text, Bantoft asks Finnegan: “so is he paying or nah.”
Finnegan later texts Bantoft: “I’m starting to think he has sent us to the wrong place LoL.”
Prof Levi West, an ANU expert in extremism, says there is still not a “coherent explanation for what’s going on”, other than that the attacks are antisemitic.
“I think the key thing that everyone’s sort of dancing around is that the correct answer is, we don’t know,” he said.
Regardless of who is behind these acts, West said it’s important not to lose sight of their impact on Australia’s Jewish community. Security and police presence has been ramped up across Jewish schools and other institutions.
Simone Abel, the head of legal at the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the incidents had led to “difficult conversations around dinner tables and elsewhere about the safety of our kids – and also the safety of other children at our kids’ schools”.
West warned against losing the nuance between what could be called a “hate crime” – such as the vandalism in Jewish neighbourhoods – and terrorist acts investigated by counter-terrorism police.
He also warned against politicians inflaming the situation by making it a divisive issue.
“It doesn’t need my comments or a politician’s comments to turn this into something terrible. It’s already terrible,” West said.
“We should all be speaking proportionately and sensibly and only talking about things that we know to be true and can be supported with evidence.”
