U.S. Student in Jerusalem Charged with Iran Contact after Telegram Job Ad and Photo Tasks

Eli Lavon, a 21-year-old American ultra-Orthodox student at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, was charged with spying for Iran in exchange for cryptocurrency payments, Cnn reported. An indictment filed on Friday by the State Attorney’s Office listed two counts of contact with a foreign agent and 14 counts of communicating information to the enemy that may be useful to the enemy.

Lavon answered a job advertisement on the Telegram messaging app in November 2025 while visiting family in the United States.

One month later, a foreign agent acting for Iranian intelligence contacted him on the app after he returned to Israel and assigned tasks that included taking photos and videos, according to the indictment. He recorded video of an abandoned building in a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem and footage inside a specific grocery store.

In one assignment the agent directed Lavon to hide a cigarette packet containing a note that read “The job is complete” in a bathroom trash can at Hadar Mall in Jerusalem.

Lavon used two Telegram accounts and three phones to communicate with the agents and received hundreds of dollars in cryptocurrency for the images provided. Lavon was arrested on June 9. Prosecutors said he blocked the first agent but later contacted a second agent working for Iranian intelligence.

In February he hid a USB flash drive wrapped in a 50-shekel note at a Jerusalem restaurant, sent a selfie with a picture of his passport, and received about $518 in cryptocurrency for those assignments, bringing his total payments to about $1,379. The second agent asked Lavon to supply names of fellow seminary students, but he refused.