The leader of the notorious Jalal Brothers prankster trio has unleashed a tirade towards Victorian police just hours after being charged over a series of "terror stunts" posted online.
Counter-terrorism detectives on Thursday charged the brothers Max and Arman Jalal and a 16-year-old boy with causing a public nuisance, possessing a prohibited weapon and behaving in an offensive manner.
Max Jalal, 20, bragged about their release, posting "Prison Break" on his Facebook page, before telling police to "go get some real criminals".
"There's rapist, pedophiles, drug dealers, the list goes on. But they're sooooo proud they arrested us lmao," he wrote on Thursday night.
A post on The Jalals' official Facebook page then claimed 30 counter-terrorism officers were involved in the investigation, which involved a six-hour interview. The post asked: "Was it really all worth it?"
The Jalals appeared on The Project on Wednesday, where Waleed Aly savaged them for being "pretty damn irresponsible" for playing pranks on unsuspecting people to make them think they were caught in a terrorist attack.
One video uploaded by the brothers showed three men in Middle Eastern attire shooting a fake AK-47 at people across Melbourne. In the video, a girl is seen fleeing from a phone book during one of the 'drive-by' shootings.
The Jalal Brothers have more than a million Facebook followers. Many have posted messages of support for the trio. Several people have commented a variation of this: "I love you guys Australia needs a sense of humour".
Police had been monitoring the video pranks for several weeks but had only decided to take action once the trio’s actions were criminal. The brothers have been released on bail and banned from producing more videos.