Israeli man arrested in US Jewish community center bomb threats

quote:

---

The primary suspect in a string of bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers in the U.S. -- a 19-year-old Israeli Jewish man -- was arrested Thursday, Israeli police announced.

The unnamed suspect was arrested early Thursday morning in his house in southern Israel based partly on information from the FBI, and was set to appear in court later in the day. Police also detained his father for questioning. The investigation began about six months ago, following a threat made to a Jewish institute in New Zealand, according to an Israeli police statement. New Zealand identified the IP address as originating from Israel and contacted Israeli police.

Investigators said they initially struggled to locate the suspect but then received several reports of threats from 16 Jewish centers in nine U.S. states – Florida, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and North Carolina. The FBI began investigating.

Delta Airlines also received a threat about a bomb on one of its planes, causing it to halt flights to check their aircraft and forcing a plane already in the air to land, in February 2015.

The FBI handed over the information to Israeli police after finding that these threats too had originated from Israel.

he suspect used advanced disguise technologies when contacting other countries, such as distorting voice recognition software, police said, adding that a motive was unclear.

---