Australia police say seemingly antisemitic terrorism incidents were really "criminal con job" to sow chaos

An explosives-filled trailer that Australian politicians earlier described as an antisemitic terrorism plot and a foiled mass casualty event was staged by criminals in a complicated hoax and was never meant to be detonated, police said Monday.

Law enforcement agencies investigating January's discovery of the trailer on the outskirts of Sydney divulged in a news conference that its placement was concocted by criminals who meant to derive personal gain from tipping off authorities to its presence — a bizarre twist in a saga that followed a monthslong wave of antisemitic crimes in Australia.

The cluster of attacks targeting places where Jewish people live, work and study, including a firebombing of a synagogue and a daycare center and several instances of antisemitic vandalism, were committed by "a very small group, and potentially one individual behind all those matters," Deputy Police Commissioner for the state of New South Wales David Hudson told reporters on Monday.