The teen arrested for JCC bomb threats covers his face at a hearing. Image by Reuters

By Naomi Zeveloff April 6, 2017

The Israeli-American teenager suspected of making fraudulent bomb threats to American Jewish institutions used a bitcoin account worth millions of shekels, Israeli police said, according to Haaretz.

The large sum of money is an indication that the suspect might have been paid in order to make the threatening phone calls that evacuated JCCs around the country in recent months.

The teenager, from the southern Israeli city Ashkelon, is in police custody, and appeared in an Israeli court on Thursday in order to have his remand extended for the third time.

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Police said that they are making progress in the case, and now know that the teen made thousands of such calls.

According to Haaretz, the teen acted in a “planned and intelligent” manner on the internet and on the so-called “dark web,” the hidden network that can only be accessed through special authorizations, which counters claims that he did not know what he was doing.

The teens’ parents apologized publicly for his actions.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]

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