Police believe “foreign actors” are paying local criminals to commit crimes amid a surge in anti-Semitic incidents. Australia is probing into the claims that funding from outside the country is behind a spate of surge in anti-Semitic crime.
Detectives probing the anti-Semitic attacks across the country have found that foreign actors have been paying local criminals to commit them, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday. However, he declined to comment on the source of the suspected funding.
People must understand where some of these attacks are coming from; it would appear … that some … 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. Police “believe criminals-for-hire may be behind some incidents,” Australia Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.
He added that inquiries are on to identify “who is paying those criminals, where those people are, whether they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is. ” This follows the meeting of the state police chiefs discussing an increase in anti-Semitic crime in Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas started on October 7, 2023, which has surged in recent months.
