The Israeli prosecution sued a 21-year-old United States citizen who was studying in Jerusalem for intelligence-related duties following contact with the Iranian side and for payment in encrypted currency. This was the first in a series of recent Israeli recruitment cases involving United States citizens.
Prosecution covers two types of charges
According to CNN ' s indictment, the man was named Eli Lavon. The Israeli State Prosecution Service formally filed a complaint on Friday, alleging two “contacts with foreign agents” and 14 “transmitting information that may be in the interest of the enemy”.
According to the prosecution, the case began in November 2025. At that time, Lavon responded to a recruitment call through Telegram during a family visit to the United States. A month later, on his way back to Israel, he was contacted by individuals who claimed to represent the Iranian intelligence services and then began to receive mission instructions.
The prosecution claims to take over through Telegram.
According to the indictment, the tasks included filming abandoned buildings in a religious community in Jerusalem and recording videos in a grocery store. The prosecution also stated that he had been required to hide a pack of cigarettes in a mall garbage can in Jerusalem, with a note written “The mission has been completed”.
The prosecution stated that he had contacted each other through two Telegram accounts and three mobile phones and had been paid an encrypted monetary fee for the submission of relevant materials.
Following the interruption of contacts with the first contact, the prosecution stated that he was in contact with the second contact alleged to be related to Iran. In the meantime, he had hidden a U-disk wrapped in cash in a restaurant and sent his passport photo.
Cumulative compensation approximately $1379
According to the indictment, the second contact had asked him to provide the names of the students at the same school, but he refused to do so. According to the prosecution, he received a total of approximately US$ 1379 from two contacts.
According to Ronit Shentzer Yaakobi, an officer of the Jerusalem District Prosecutor ' s Office, the case shows that foreign intelligence agencies are trying to use digital channels to identify, recruit and manipulate individuals in Israel.
Lavon ' s lawyer, Raz Bar Tzvi, stated to CNN that mere online contact with foreign actors was not sufficient to conclude that they constituted espionage. In his view, the facts set out in the indictment were not sufficient to support the charges, but did not indicate how the parties would respond.