TEL AVIV, Israel — It began last summer with an unsolicited message via Telegram with an offer to make some easy money. Vladislav Victorson, 31, an Israeli living in a suburb east of Tel Aviv, took the bait.
His first job, according to Israeli court documents, involved spray painting anti-government slogans around his neighborhood, including one comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Victorson and his partner, Anya Bernstein, who was also accused of carrying out tasks, had soon earned $600 between them, the documents showed.
The employer, it turned out, was an Iranian agent, according to police and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. Victorson and Bernstein, who were arrested in October 2024, were part of a wave of Israelis lured through the internet into working for Iran, according to Israeli authorities.
The demands by the Telegram messenger quickly escalated to sabotaging electricity boxes with sulfuric acid, setting cars alight, using a hair-spray canister and firecrackers to make a bomb, and ultimately plotting to assassinate an Israeli professor for $100,000.
Victorson and Bernstein, 19, are now on trial, charged with maintaining contact with a foreign agent, vandalism, arson and, in Victorson’s case, a terrorist act of conspiracy to murder.
The Iranian effort adds a new dimension to a shadow war Israel and Iran have been engaged in for decades, with Israel seeking to clip Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and Iran supporting proxy forces on Israel’s borders.
The recruitment of the Israeli citizens pales beside the sophisticated penetration by Israeli intelligence of Iran’s inner circles as evidenced by air assaults against Iranian nuclear and security sites, senior military figures and scientists in June. Iran also tries to infiltrate Israel’s inner circles, security experts say.
But Israeli officials and experts say that the low-level recruiting of ordinary Israelis — which has escalated since the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the war in the Gaza Strip — is an attempt by Iran to foment internal strife and undermine Israeli society. By casting a wide net, the Iranian recruiters hoped to find a few willing to kill, while also raising troubling questions for Israel about the loyalty of some of its citizens.
Iranian officials did not respond to requests for comment. Some officials in Tehran have recently accused Israel of being behind a recent string of mysterious fires and explosions in Iran.
Over the past year, the Israeli government says, Shin Bet and the police have cracked more than 25 of the internet-driven recruitment cases and thwarted dozens more caught at earlier stages.
“The Iranians are investing hefty money and resources in a broad effort to recruit Israelis over the internet to carry out missions,” Shin Bet said in a statement.
An Israeli government public awareness campaign warns in radio and social media ads that “easy money” can lead to a “heavy price” of years behind bars.
The escalating demands made of Victorson is classic spycraft, said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former Shin Bet counterintelligence official. Those tactics begin with “small money for small tasks,” he said.
As the money and risks increase, so do the temptation and self-delusion, Ben Hanan noted. People recruited for such work typically tell themselves, “You did it, it wasn’t so bad, you didn’t kill anybody,” he added, leading them to potentially take more risks.
More than 40 Israelis arrested over the past year have been charged or are expected to be charged, some accused of colluding with an enemy at wartime, Israeli officials say.
One has been convicted: Moti Maman, a high-living but unsuccessful businessperson in his early 70s, was arrested in September 2024. He received a 10-year sentence in April after being smuggled into Iran twice in the back of a truck and discussing assassinating an Israeli politician with Iranian intelligence officials.
The suspects represent a cross-section of Israeli society, among them religious and secular Jews, immigrants, Arab citizens, an Iranian-born Israeli, a soldier, and a resident of a West Bank Jewish settlement. Maman is the oldest; the youngest is 13.
A review of more than a dozen indictments showed that the sums of money alleged to have been disbursed, paid in cryptocurrency, usually amounted to no more than a few thousand dollars. Most suspects were arrested within weeks of their first contact with handlers.
Missions included committing arson and finding buried money, weapons or explosives and then moving them to different locations, the indictments showed. Targets were instructed to buy cellphones, cameras and other equipment and to download encryption programs for safe communications.
One defendant, an immigrant from Azerbaijan living in southern Israel, was said to have been told to document his route past sensitive military sites and to rent an apartment with a view of the port of Haifa. Two others, the indictments say, were told to install cameras near the home of Israel’s defense minister but got cold feet when they spotted a patrol car.
In another case, two young men are accused of planning to travel to Iran to train for an assassination in Israel.
In a small Tel Aviv courtroom on a recent weekday, Victorson and Bernstein sat in brown prison uniforms behind glass, separated by guards, as a police investigator gave evidence — one of dozens of the prosecution’s witnesses in the case.
The couple’s charge sheet said that they had carried out missions “knowing that the agent was acting on behalf of an enemy state or a terrorist organization” and that they had been aware their actions could harm national security.
The lawyer representing Victorson, Igal Dotan, said that he knew of no evidence that Victorson’s handler was from Iran or another enemy state.
In this case, as in some of the others, there was no explicit mention of Iran, espionage or passing information to an enemy in the indictment, and the Shin Bet materials are classified. Dotan said Victorson had been interrogated by Shin Bet without prior access to a lawyer, and then by police, and that the interrogations had not been filmed or recorded, complicating his defense.
The police investigator on the stand did not dispute those claims. But he insisted that the handler was an Iranian, based on material he had received from Shin Bet. Shin Bet said its interrogations took place according to protocol and under judicial supervision.
Iaroslav Matz, the lawyer representing Bernstein, said she thought she was working for activists involved in Israel’s political and culture wars. She met Victorson when she was 17. “She’s a hapless young girl who was influenced” by Victorson, Matz said.
According to the charge sheet, Victorson refused several missions, including the sabotage of electricity boxes — in that case because he feared injury from the sulfuric acid. Sent to photograph anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv, he was blocked by a police barrier and tried to fob off his handler with images he found on the internet, the prosecution said.
Bernstein encouraged Victorson to set fire to cars, according to the indictment. Matz said she was not involved in the plot to kill the professor. The handler told Victorson that the professor had betrayed him and that he did not work for the government, according to the charge sheet.
The handler offered to pay off Victorson’s debts if he went through with killing the professor, or another target for a lesser fee of $40,000, and said that he would meet the couple in Russia and relocate them to a third country.
On the night of Sept. 22, Victorson told his handler that he could purchase a sniper rifle for $21,000. The handler said he would be back in touch in a couple of days. Hours later, Victorson and Bernstein were arrested.