A 21-year-old American citizen was indicted in Israel on espionage charges on behalf of Iran, becoming the first known case against a U.S. national within a wave of prosecutions linked to Iranian intelligence since 2023.
Eli Lavon, a student at an ultra-Orthodox seminary in Jerusalem, was formally charged by the State Prosecution with two counts of contact with a foreign agent and 14 counts of communicating information useful to the enemy, as reported by CNN.
According to the indictment, everything began in November 2025, when Lavon responded from the United States to a job offer posted on Telegram. A month later, upon returning to Israel, an individual claiming to represent Iranian intelligence recruited him to carry out surveillance tasks in Israel: filming an abandoned building in Jerusalem and recording footage inside a supermarket.
Prosecutors allege that he hid a cigarette pack containing a note in a trash bin at a shopping center. Payments were made in cryptocurrencies, and communication was routed through two Telegram accounts and three phones. The amounts received from both Iranian operators totaled approximately $1,379. Defense attorney Raz Bar Tzvi argued that being contacted online by a foreign actor does not make someone a spy. Israel has charged approximately 60 people on similar counts since 2023.
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