Posters of the Bondi shooter appeared around Melbourne. The culprit has now been unmasked

A wealthy neo-Nazi associate has unmasked himself as the person behind an offensive series of posters depicting the Bondi shooter that had appeared at night around Melbourne recently – the latest in a series of far-right stunts exploiting Australia’s worst terror attack.

Police had been closing in on those behind the mysterious poster stunt, which had hijacked the style of an iconic Australian poster art series to include an image of Naveed Akram, one of the gunmen of the Bondi Beach massacre, with the word “Aussie” beneath his face.

Overnight, Hugo Lennon posted a video online showing himself and another far-right influencer putting up the posters in high-vis clothing late at night.

Victoria Police told this masthead on Tuesday they had since expanded their investigation into the stunts to include Lennon’s video and determine whether “other more serious offences” had occurred alongside the offence of billposting.

Lennon, who goes by the online moniker “auspill”, claimed in the video overnight that he had used “intel” from “patriots” to decide the target sites for the poster campaign, without elaborating.

His video appeared following rallies in Sydney and Melbourne on Monday protesting the arrival of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who was invited to Australia by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the Bondi attack in which 15 people were killed and dozens injured at a Hanukkah celebration.

The poster stunt was an attempt, Lennon said, to mock the well-known series by artist Peter Drew, which celebrates multiculturalism and challenges xenophobic views of what an Australian is meant to look like. Other posters covertly put up by Lennon and his associate featured US President Donald Trump and Man Haron Monis, who carried out the deadly Lindt Cafe siege in 2014.

Lennon took issue with the assertion of Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece that his spoof posters were not art. He claimed he and an associate were pushing Drew’s idea to its “logical limits”, and he mocked the widespread condemnation the stunt had received, including from Melbourne’s Jewish community.

Drew had publicly challenged those behind the posters spoofing his art to come forward and Reece had called it a “sick” act of hate while families were still grieving after the Bondi massacre.

On Tuesday, Drew told this masthead: “This is what happens when white boys spend too much time online. I think they should apologise for embarrassing their parents and be grounded for two weeks (with no Xbox).

“It’s just sad. [They] have their whole lives ahead of them, but they’re throwing it all away for online clout.”

This masthead previously revealed that Lennon, a Scotch College graduate from a wealthy property development family and a key organiser of the anti-immigration March for Australia rallies, is also an associate of Australia’s main neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network (NSN).

Following news of Lennon’s unmasking, Premier Jacinta Allan said she would take advice from police as to whether the posters also breached Victoria’s hate laws.

“I’m sure Victoria Police will be very interested in pursuing that with their investigation,” she said at a media conference.

The Australian Federal Police declined to say whether it was also investigating.

Reece told this masthead: “These boys need to grow up and realise that their actions have very serious consequences for a community that is grieving – they should be ashamed of themselves. This was a clear assault on the Jewish community and Australian values, and I’m pleased to see the matter is being taken seriously by police.”

Until recently, neo-Nazi group the NSN had been working with Lennon behind the scenes to run the March for Australia rallies around the country, but last month disbanded on paper to escape the government’s new crackdown on extremism, though experts warn those now cut loose from the group’s orbit are more volatile than ever.

Days later, an investigation by this masthead revealed that a string of threats uncovered in a secret chatroom run by March organisers and NSN neo-Nazis, including a $10,000 plot to kidnap Prime Minister Albanese, had led to at least two police raids in the lead up to the latest Australia Day rallies. Lennon helped run and promoted that Discord chatroom, but didn’t take part in the threats or extremist views shared on it.

The chatroom has since been shut down by the gaming platform Discord for breaching rules “about violent extremism”, and most of its users suspended.

Albanese has acknowledged the threats uncovered there and called for Australians to “turn down the temperature of political debate”.

The City of Melbourne staff had worked around the clock to remove about 40 of the spoof posters put up by Lennon and his associates. Police said they had now reviewed CCTV footage and continued to liaise with the council as their investigation continued.

Dr Dvir Abramovich of the Anti-Defamation Commission said free speech laws were never meant to protect the glorification of terrorists. “Taking the face of an [accused] mass murderer and pasting it onto Melbourne’s walls… reopens graves,” he said. “It tells grieving families that their loss is a joke, a meme, a stunt for online applause. This is how extremism works in daylight.”

Abramovich said the stunt “reeked of the neo-Nazi playbook” and the NSN’s recent efforts to inflame public debate and spread its reach online through provocative stunts.

But “city streets are not recruitment billboards for Hitler worshippers”, he said.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said that, while “the faces of the Bondi terrorists will fade into history”, those who will be remembered from the massacre are “the victims, the survivors, and the heroes who rushed in to help. They represent the true Aussie spirit.”

Drew’s distinctive “Aussie” posters, which show Australians photographed in the early 1900s with the word “Aussie” in large type at the bottom, have been plastered on walls around the country for the past decade, first created in response to rising anti-immigration sentiment in 2016. One iconic poster features a young Jewish boy.

When questioned repeatedly by this masthead, Lennon has not denied his ties to the NSN or neo-Nazi involvement in the marches.

With Daniella White

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