Israel Police believe that the young Israeli man suspected of making bomb threats to Jewish institutions in the US made more than 1,000 threatening calls to different institutions across the world, including to Delta Air Lines, which grounded two flights.
According to Chief Superintendant Meir Ohayon of the Israel Police’s cyber unit, New Zealand police requested assistance in tracing the source of the calls last September.
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After getting the relevant details and conducting a preliminary investigation, Israel Police informed their counterparts from New Zealand that they believed that source of the calls was Israel. “At that point, the hunt for the Israeli ‘hacker’ who drove the world crazy was on,” said Ohayon.
According to investigators, the suspect employed a variety of techniques to avoid detection, including using different computers connected to grids in different regions of the country and an antenna enabling him to connect to wireless networks far from his home.
The tactics initially proved successful, with investigators zeroing in on areas in southern Israel where the calls seemed to be originating from, only to come up empty handed.
Eventually, police managed to narrow down the whereabouts of the suspect and noticed under surveillance that he rarely left the apartment. After being sufficiently confident they had their bomb threats man, police invited American representatives to join in the arrest.
“His method was very simple,” said an officer involved in the investigation. “The moment he saw that his bomb threats message caused panic, he kept going on and on. It excited him.”
By Ynet News
(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
