Alleged mastermind of caravan hoax has a deep-rooted antisemitic past
Sayit Erhan Akca, the fugitive alleged to be the mastermind behind the “terror caravan plot,” has a long history of posting vile antisemitic slurs.
He fled Australia in 2023 after being charged with drug importation offences and is believed to be living in Turkey and Asia.
Police believe Akca, a former gym and childcare centre owner, hoped to secure a lighter court sentence by fabricating information about the discovery of an explosives-laden caravan and a series of antisemitic arson and graffiti attacks in Sydney.
In recent statements, police downplayed claims that the unidentified kingpin was motivated by antisemitism. However, The Australian has revealed that Akca has a history of posting antisemitic and anti-Israel slurs over several years.
Sayet Erhan Akca with his wife (Facebook)
On Facebook, April 15, 2018, Akca wrote: “Hitler was only washing the earth; they made him out to be evil.” On November 3, 2018, he questioned the Holocaust’s death toll, posting: “How did 6 million die when only 3.2 registered Jews in Europe at the time?” On December 5, 2019, responding to a news article about vandals spraying swastikas on cars in a Jewish community, he commented: “Zeig heil.”
Posting a photo of himself visiting a mosque in Istanbul in September 2018, Akca posted a bizarre “common question,” asking if Muslims believe they receive 40 virgins for committing an act of terrorism or mass suicide. He answered his own question:
“Let me ask, would you like to pop 40 cherries? Would you like to change 40 bed sheets? So yes, we believe that you go straight to hell for killing yourself or any of God’s creatures unless it’s for eating purposes and done the Halal (natural) way. Not with a C4. #DumbestTheorySinceFlatEarth. No Pun Intended… but no one besides the educated would understand that anyway.”
As far back as May 14, 2016, Akca was spreading conspiracy theories, claiming: “America gets caught funding $540M to produce ‘ISIS’ videos.” On December 18, 2016, he posted:
“R.I.P. to all those innocents that have died in Aleppo and around the world in the hands of terrorism, and I mean from the root of terrorism, America and the Zionists, taking out these people like Saddam, Bin Laden & Gaddafi, look what it’s started. You still think 9/11 was not an inside job to start this money-making and Muslim massacre process, delete yourself now.”
Akca has reportedly been living in Asia and Turkey since mid-2023 after fleeing Australia while on bail for attempting to import a commercial quantity of drugs using the AN0M messaging app.
The report linking Akca to the caravan plot, first published in The Daily Telegraph, comes as NSW Premier Chris Minns ruled out repealing hate speech laws passed last month after revelations that several recent antisemitic attacks were orchestrated by a previously unnamed figure with organised crime connections.
In simultaneous dawn raids, police arrested 14 people in connection with a series of vandalism and firebombing attacks, bringing the total number of arrests under the state police hate crimes unit to 29, with 143 charges laid.
The plot appears to date back to an antisemitic vandalism attack in Woollahra in December, culminating in the discovery of an explosives-laden caravan in Dural, northwest Sydney, on January 19. After the discovery, Premier Minns called it a terror event. However, police now describe it as a “criminal con job”, a fabricated terror plot orchestrated by an unidentified criminal seeking leverage to reduce his sentence or have charges dropped.
On Thursday, Chris Minns stressed that the conspiracy had deliberately targeted the Jewish community “to instil terror in our state.” Responding to calls to repeal the new laws, he argued that doing so would send a toxic message that “this kind of hate speech is acceptable when it’s not.”
On Wednesday, the NSW Greens claimed the attacks were “not motivated by antisemitism” and accused the Minns government of a “kneejerk overreaction” with “overreaching criminal laws.”
“I expect that the parliament will shortly be considering whether these unnecessary and reactive laws should be repealed, and so we should,” said Greens MLC Sue Higginson. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties also called for an inquiry into whether Minns “misled the parliament and public in order to pass the Places of Worship Bill and the Inciting Racial Hatred Bill.”
However, the Premier reiterated on Thursday that the legislation would remain in place. “Our laws criminalised intentionally and publicly inciting hatred towards another person or group based on race,” he said. “They send a clear message: the people of NSW stand together against inciting racial hatred in our great multicultural state.”
“NSW has seen hundreds of antisemitic attacks and incidents. This racial hatred has caused our Jewish community to live in fear in their own state. While the caravan was part of a criminal conspiracy, and not the plot of a terrorist organisation, it was still appalling racial hatred,” Minns said.
The revelation that Akca harboured extreme antisemitic views for years has come as no surprise to Jewish leaders. Writing on social media, Alex Ryvchin, Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, condemned the initial response from authorities and political figures, stating, “It has exposed dangerous failings by authorities, political leaders and public figures who chose to characterise the fire bombings that hit Jewish targets as a hoax or con-job unconnected to antisemitic ideology and to do so before the investigation had been concluded.” Ryvchin criticized this approach as “reckless and irresponsible,” arguing that while some officials may have intended to reassure the public, their dismissive stance had the opposite effect. “In some instances, they may have been trying to calm the community by downplaying or dismissing antisemitism as a motivating factor, but the effect was the exact opposite,” he said.
