A Jewish leader has welcomed revelations the discovery of a caravan filled with explosives and an antisemitic note in Sydney was a “criminal con job” arranged by organised crime figures.

The abandoned caravan, found at Dural in the city’s north-west on January 19, was packed with enough explosives to create a 40-metre blast and contained a note with a list of “Jewish entities”, police said at the time.

The find came amid a string of antisemitic incidents in Sydney, including arson and graffiti attacks on a synagogue, which sent shock waves through the city’s Jewish community.

On Monday, police made 14 more arrests related to the antisemitic crime wave, which they said was not ideologically motivated, but arranged to benefit organised crime figures.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said the criminals involved “sought to take advantage of already-strained social cohesion and unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism by targeting the Jewish community for their own personal benefit”.

“This is reprehensible and had a chilling effect on the Jewish community,” Ossip said.

Monday’s “confirmation that the caravan plot was fabricated will bring some comfort to the Jewish community and we look forward to receiving further information as the investigation continues to progress”, he said.

“We will continue to engage closely with law enforcement agencies and the NSW government in relation to these matters and the ongoing security of the Jewish community.”

Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the caravan was never going to cause mass casualties but was a concocted criminal plot to cause fear for their benefit.

Almost immediately on finding it, investigators believed it “was part of a fabricated terrorism plot — essentially a criminal con job”, she said.

The caravan’s discovery was viewed as an escalation of anti-Semitism in Australia and prompted federal opposition calls for an inquiry into when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was told of the find.

Albanese, who has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism, dismissed the need for an inquiry.

Reported cases of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have increased in Australia since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 and Israel launched a war in Gaza in response.

-AAP