Jeweler charged in false subway plot

? A jeweler, apparently bent on revenge against former business associates, was arrested Monday for reporting a bogus plot to bomb the New York subways last July Fourth weekend, authorities said.

The false report launched a costly terrorist investigation that extended as far as Israel and involved more than 40 investigators, police said.

Rimon Alkatri, 34, a native of Syria living in Brooklyn, surrendered after a grand jury indicted him on a charge of falsely reporting an incident, a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, according to Dist. Atty. Robert Morganthau.

The indictment alleges that Alkatri, identifying himself as Jose Rodriqez of Israel, called a police terrorism tips hot line May 30 and said that a suicide bomb attack on the subways was planned for the holiday weekend.

He told investigators that the plot involved five Syrians working in the jewelry business, according to Patrick Dugan, chief of the DA’s Rackets Bureau.

The names turned out to be those of five jewelry business associates with whom he’d had a falling out, said investigators, who did not elaborate on the dispute.