For six months, the investigation into an anti-Semitic terror attack in Melbourne late last year has been spinning its wheels. Counter-terrorism police investigating the Adass Israel synagogue ran up against a blank wall, as the person or group who ordered the firebombing concealed their involvement by using encryption technology and untraceable thugs for hire.
This week, they finally made a breakthrough and made their first arrest.
The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team has charged a man with the theft of the car allegedly used by those involved in the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea.
The JCTT arrested the 20-year-old man at Williamstown on Wednesday and charged him with the theft of the blue Volkswagen Golf which police allege was later used by those involved in December’s Adass Israel Synagogue arson attack as well as other serious crimes around the state.
The stolen car was seized in December. It was soon linked to a string of violent crimes, both on the same night and in the weeks leading up to the terror attack. These included a drive-by shooting in Bundoora on the night of the synagogue attack and the firebombing of the Lux Nightclub in Chapel Street, South Yarra, a fortnight before.
According to counterterrorism command assistant commissioner Tess Walsh, the use of the car was part of a novel methodology: “A communal crime car potentially used by multiple groups and individuals in the commission of a range of different offences.” Some of the offences are linked to Melbourne’s Middle-Eastern gang-fuelled ‘tobacco war’.
Perhaps not coincidentally, following the latest arrest, the JCTT executed a search warrant at Melton South, the former sleepy country town grown into an swollen outer-suburb flooded with many of the millions of recent migrants. Melton has previously been linked to the reign of terror perpetrated by African crime gangs.
The motives for burning the tobacco shops appeared clear, but fires were also being lit at restaurants, auto shops, gyms, fruit stands and grocery stores, factories and homes.
But the masterminds of the anti-Semitic terror attack remain elusive.
The person or group who ordered the firebombing concealed their involvement by using encryption technology and untraceable thugs for hire […] underworld and police sources have described how criminals used sophisticated encryption to protect themselves.
They’ve also, as we’ve seen in Sydney, taken to using low-level thugs and crims to do their dirty work, thus concealing their terror motivations.
The investigation had been able to identify only low-level suspects allegedly responsible for setting the fire, who were suspected violent criminals and street gang members for hire with no known political or ideological affiliations.
Anyone arrested would probably face only arson charges because there was not enough evidence to substantiate terrorism charges, the source said.
But using petty crims as their patsies may also be their undoing. These guys are not exactly known for being brains trusts.
In the case of the Lux Nightclub, Bundoora drive-by shooting and Adass Israel attacks, those using the stolen car had blundered by not setting fire to it to destroy the evidence, as is common for these underworld networks. Instead, the car was reused, passed on or sold for use in other crimes.
Hopefully, these dolts will prove to be the terror masterminds’ weakest link.
