Australia’s anti-Semitism crisis: Expert suspects foreign-funded hate crimes are sprouting from prison yards

A legal expert who specialises in financial compliance, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing strongly suspects a hostile foreign nation is funding the spate of anti-semitic attacks sweeping Australia.

Lehman Walsh Lawyers managing partner Janya Eighani also believes the foot soldiers carrying out the hate crimes, which she labels acts of “terrorism”, are being recruited through their jail connections.

“It’s amazing the conversations and things that happen in prison yards,” she said.

“Through our line of work, we always see that the first place that you can find somebody is the prison.

“If you look a little deeper into these individuals, their background, their family members, they would have some form of connection to someone in prison.”

The head of cross border compliance and litigation at her Sydney law firm said the motivation of these petty criminals would have nothing to do with race, religion or ideology.

“Generally they will execute it without leaking any information about the mastermind behind it because they are motivated by money, mainly,” she said.

“The whole point is to keep the masterminds, Hamas and the nation behind it, at arm’s length by hiring others – individuals, businesses and organisations – to launder the money for them and conduct the acts.”

Ms Eighani believes foreign actors are orchestrating the attacks here, which would involve “layers and layers” of people to execute.

“There are various groups of individuals involved in putting this together so there’s substantial amounts of money,” she said.

“The people (recruiting the petty criminals) are just actors.

“They have been put here to run businesses for terrorist organisations and for states that sponsor terrorism.”

Last month Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw revealed his agency was investigating whether “overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs”.

“The terrorist attacks are potentially funded by a bigger player than those that we see in Australia,” Ms Eighani said.

“We’re talking about billions and billions of dollars … so the source of funds could not be found in Australia.

“Israel has brought it to the United States’ attention recently that there are funds going from Iran to Lebanon in suitcases. It’s to fund (terrorism) and this has been going on for many years.”

Iran is one of Hamas’s biggest benefactors.

In November 2023, the US declared Iranian support had enabled the terrorist activities of Hamas, through the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and the provision of weapons and operational training.

“Hamas is just one player, amongst many others,” Ms Eighani said.

“These are state or nation sponsored attacks and we know there is a nation behind Hamas and Hezbollah that shares the same ideology as them.

“These are nation-state sponsored attacks (being perpetrated) by individuals that have absolutely no association to the actual motive behind it.”

Hamas is a terrorist organisation and subject to Australian counter-terrorism financing sanctions.

None of the anti-Semitic attacks in Australia have been formally designated as “terrorism” but some are being investigated as potential acts of terrorism.

In NSW, Strike Force Pearl has charged 14 people with anti-Semitic crimes.

The alleged offenders range in age from 19 to 58 but have a lot in common.

“These petty criminals are so far from the actual source,” Ms Eighani said.

“If you were to profile these criminals, you can see that they don’t have the motives, they don’t have any connection to religion or race, and they are simply being used to execute these plots on behalf of bigger nation state sponsored attacks.

“It’s just a matter of finding someone who’s willing to do it, and these individuals that have now been charged fit the perfect profile.”

Ms Eighani said these low-level crooks share a few key traits.

“If you look at the way that organised crime usually operates in this traditional sense, they use individuals who tick at least these three boxes. They have a criminal record, they have been in prison and they are in need of money,” she said.

“If you tick those boxes, you have the right person who will execute it, if they can.

“Obviously, terror plots are a little bit more sophisticated than your usual crime, so they have failed in some instances.”

The lawyer is referring to the botched arson at Bondi’s Curly Lewis Brewing Company in October.

Guy Finnegan and Craig Bantoft were arrested and charged over the incident.

Court documents revealed the pair had been commissioned to light the fire for a mysterious puppet master using the alias “James Bond” who was furious when the fire lit by the pair self-extinguished within a minute.

Finnegan, 31, was last month sentenced to 10 months in prison over his part in the anti-Semitic attack.

An agreed set of facts tendered to the court revealed Finnegan told police he attempted to torch the brewery because he owed drug money and had been threatened but he would not reveal who ordered him to commit the crime.

Bantoft, 37, has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced next month.

Some of the anti-Semitic attacks bear the hallmarks of organised crime, including using stolen cars and cloned number plates, and some of the offenders reportedly have links to NSW’s criminal underbelly.

Last month Commissioner Kershaw said the AFP was looking at whether criminals were being paid and if that involved “cryptocurrency, which can take longer to identify”.

The AFP won’t comment on it further with a spokesperson saying “the AFP will provide an update at an appropriate time”.

Ms Eighani said Hamas has used cryptocurrency to raise funds since at least 2019.

“So we were not surprised to hear that crypto was involved in this but who has funded the money behind cryptocurrency?” she said.

“Cryptocurrency has been used, but it is one very small piece in a big terror financing puzzle.

The way that terrorism is financed is like an onion. It has layers and layers and layers and layers.

“In order to put the entire business together, you really have to go through the entire process, the financial circuits they have put in place, and that requires a lot of expertise and knowledge.”

Ms Eighani believes the funds used in the recent anti-Semitic attacks would have been brought into Australia long before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

“They’ve been running and operating businesses in Australia for many years, laundering money, and now those funds are being dispersed,” she said.

“No transfer needs to take place which is why everyone’s so confused where the money is coming from.

“It’s been coming from overseas for many, many years. In fact, international transfers would have stopped now in order to avoid any detection.

“They will now be tapping into their resources in Australia that they’ve been planting for many years to start dispersing the funds to various people.”

The petty crooks carrying out the crimes are probably being paid in cash.

“Criminals wouldn’t be exchanging crypto and large exchanges,” Ms Eighani said.

“They wouldn’t be transferring money through the banks.

“So it’s understanding the various informal ways that money changes hands across the world, which will shed some light as to how ultimately these criminals are being paid.”

Crypto is unlikely to be used because it is traceable, immutable and operates on an open ledger.

“It will not be a form of transfer that you would use to commit an offence, because you’re putting the evidence out there and saying, ‘I got paid and this is how much I got paid’,” she said.

“In Australia, we have very tight regulations around exchange of cryptocurrency … and in order for those coins to be used they have to be exchanged.

“And it’s not difficult to know who’s getting paid the Fiat or transferring or exchanging it.”

Ms Eighani – whose experience spans cyber and white collar crime, anti-money laundering, inquiries, national and international tax, fraud and corruption investigations – regularly works with Cybertrace CEO Dan Halpin.

“The way that terrorism is financed is like an onion,” she said.

“Cryptocurrency is the outer layer.

“It’s traceable, but to get to the actual source of funds, you will need to have the expertise to trace, track and follow the funds, which is what Dan and I have been working on for many years because of the compliance work that we do.”

Cybertrace is a global cyber investigations firm, based in Australia, that specialises in tracing stolen cryptocurrency.

It uses software provided by Chainalysis which identifies and provides attribution data which means identifying wallet addresses linked to groups, organisations, entities and companies.

Mr Halpin – who spent 24 years working in Australian law enforcement, government intelligence and private investigations – told The Nightly attribution data may list certain wallet addresses as owned by an exchange, or linked to a known criminal group or terrorist organisation.

“The tracing of crypto, even when using advanced software such as Chainalysis, is a difficult process,” he said.

“The analyst needs a keen ability to recognise patterns and a thorough understanding of cryptocurrency and the related blockchains.

“It is very easy to miss a crucial point in the transactions which will lead to the wrong conclusion.”

Mr Halpin said Chainalysis holds data which relates to wallet addresses linked to the financing of Hamas but the last wallet address attributed to Hamas dates to 2023.

“This doesn’t mean that Hamas is not using crypto, it means they have become better at hiding their transactions,” he said.

“In the older records for Hamas transfers, the only information available on the ledger is the amount, date and time and information related to the blockchain. There is no personally identifying information.”

However, when a transaction is traced to a receiving crypto exchange, usually where it is converted to another cryptocurrency or fiat, the account holder records can be requested from the exchange.

“This usually is only something that the police, other official authority or the courts can obtain due to strict policies at the exchanges,” Mr Halpin said.

“In saying this, many criminals use mules to register their accounts and stay anonymous.”

Ms Eighani said criminals commonly exploit an untraceable form of underground banking called hawala.

It is a way to send money from one location to another without any currency actually moving.

“Hawala is the main form of informal transfer that’s been used,” she said.

“It is very common in the Middle East, where the funds don’t actually physically change hands, so they are absolutely untraceable unless you know how the system works.

“It’s a very simple yet sophisticated process.”

It is simple because it requires no documentation and, therefore, is an anonymous system of moving money.

This alternative remittance practice involves a financial credit and debit (offsetting) relationship between two or more dealers operating in different countries.

“It’s a promise of funds from one person to another without actually physically transferring those monies,” Ms Eighani said.

“It’s as simple as walking in saying I would like to transfer these funds to a family member in Iran, for example, and it’s arranged without anybody knowing these funds have exchanged hands.

“You don’t even have to go into the shop. You can just pick up the phone and say, ‘I would like to send $100,000 to someone in Lebanon’. The (Hawaladar) in Lebanon picks up the phone and says ‘okay’. They then go and pay the $100,000 to the recipient. And in Australia, the (Hawaladar) gets paid by whoever was requesting the transfer.

“There is no way of tracing the $100,000 leaving Australia even though the funds have been exchanged.”

There is no official record or paper trail, which is what – conversely – makes Hawala so sophisticated.

“Given that the funds don’t really exchange hands or go from one place physically to another, it is very difficult to trace them,” Ms Eighani said.

In Australia, Hawala dealers are considered remittance service providers and are legally supposed to register with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre.

They are also required to comply with obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006.

The Money Laundering in Australia National Risk Assessment 2024 said criminals continue to use remitters, including hawala dealers, to launder funds in Australia.

It also said the use of unregistered remitters is increasing.

However the number of Hawala dealers operating illegally in Australia is unknown.

To find one, you need to know where to look. They generally don’t advertise and some mask their services behind legitimate businesses.

“Whether or not they’re being paid by someone in Australia or overseas, I think that’s where the authorities are kind of stuck,” Ms Eighani said.

“That’s where crypto has come in as a facade or a layer of protection to keep the individuals, the state or the organisation making the payment and demanding the execution of these plots at arm’s length.

“The petty criminals could simply be getting paid in cash.”

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess last week said politically motivated violence “is raising the temperature of the security environment” and making acts of terrorism more likely.

“Is an attack on a synagogue terrorism, communal violence, politically motivated violence or foreign interference?” he mused.

“Depending on circumstances and motivations, it could be all of those things, or none of those things – and of course I acknowledge the impacted community will be understandably more interested in protection and justice than language and labels.

“We are not immune to hostile nation states, such as Iran, undertaking acts of security concern on our shores or near region.

“Whether such acts serve an internal interest, or a form of retaliation against Israel or our allies, we need to remain alert and responsive to these evolutions.”

Following that speech, the nation’s most powerful spy told Nine Entertainment he holds “grave concerns” that unnamed hostile states were using bikies, gangland figures or other crime groups in Australia to advance their strategic interests.

“If you are tasked by someone from overseas, and you’re a criminal and you’re doing that for a fee and it is a threat to security, then ASIO will be on your case. I reckon that’s going to be a problem for you,” he told 60 Minutes.

“I can assure you, if you are in such an organisation or you’re a criminal proxy and you’re being used by a foreign state, you don’t have to deal with law enforcement now you’ve got my agency to deal with, and that’s probably not welcome news to those individuals.”

Ms Eighani said one thing was clear: the recent antisemitic attacks are designed to create chaos, strike fear into the Jewish community and undermine confidence in the government.

“The point is, they are here. They are present in Australia. They are operating,” she said.

“They have the power to pay and buy criminals to do whatever they want for them, and next time, they may explode that van, if they wish to do so.”

Do you know more about this story? Contact kristinshorten@proton.me