Report: Israeli-US man behind JCC bomb threats held in Norway pending US extradition
Oslo rejects asylum request of man who served 7 years in jail in Israel for making thousands of fake attack calls as a teen, including to Jewish sites, but still faces related charges in US
An Israeli-American who served seven years in an Israeli prison for multiple counts of extortion after waging an intimidation campaign of bomb threats, including against Jewish Community Centers in the United States, has been detained in Norway on a US extradition request, Channel 12 reported Monday.
The hacker, a resident of Ashkelon who was a teen at the time of his conviction and whose name remains under gag order in Israel, admitted to making some 2,000 fake bomb threat calls to hospitals, airlines, schools, and various Jewish institutions out of boredom.
He was found guilty in June 2018 of hundreds of counts of extortion, spreading false information that caused panic, computer offenses, and money laundering, among other charges. That November, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined NIS 60,000 ($16,068).
In 2020 Israel’s Supreme Court shortened his term to seven years.
In addition to the prison sentence in Israel, the suspect was in 2018 indicted on hate crimes charges by the US Department of Justice that would carry a hefty prison term there.
Israel had refused to extradite him to the US, and had tried and sentenced him in Israel.
According to Channel 12, he was released from Israeli prison this year and traveled to Norway where, last week, he submitted an asylum claim. It was unclear what prompted him to do so.
Norwegian authorities rejected the claim and reportedly detained him on an existing US extradition charge.
He remains in custody until his next hearing.
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“My client was sentenced to an unprecedented sentence in Israel, despite the fact that he was recognized as a person on the high end of the autism spectrum for offenses allegedly committed on US soil,” his lawyer Nir Yaslovitzh told Channel 12.
“Unfortunately, the US apparently decided to administer a coup de grâce and, after a long time and in a clearly unjustified manner, request my client’s extradition from Norway to the US despite the fact that my client has already paid his debt with many years of imprisonment.”
Yaslovitzh called on relevant Israeli authorities “to do everything possible for the immediate release of my client from jail.”
Authorities said the suspect, identified only as “M.,” made thousands of threatening calls, mostly to community centers and schools in the US, from January to March 2017, using an online calling service that disguised his voice and allowed him to hide his identity. He also targeted hundreds of airlines and airports, malls, and police stations, in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, and tried to extort Republican State Senator Ernesto Lopez from Delaware.
In addition to the bomb threats, M. offered his extortion services through an online black market. Court documents linked him to a post on the now-shuttered illicit marketplace AlphaBay, advertising a “School Email Bomb Threat Service.” The ad offered to send customized threats to schools for $30, plus a surcharge if the buyer seeks to have someone framed.
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His threats caused fighter jets to scramble, planes to dump fuel and make emergency landings, schools to evacuate, and numerous other chaotic consequences. In some cases, he allegedly threatened to execute children he claimed to be holding hostage. Police also found hundreds of photos and videos of child pornography on his computer.
According to the US Justice Department, if convicted, M. could face a maximum jail term of 20 years for each of the hate crime charges; 10 years for each of the bomb threats; and five years for other hoax and cyberstalking charges.
