14-year-old boy indicted for spying for Iran in exchange for money

Prosecutors charged a 14-year-old boy with espionage on Wednesday after he allegedly carried out missions on Iran’s behalf, including filming the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Over the past two years, dozens of Israelis have been charged with spying for Iran. In many of the cases, Iranian agents recruited Israelis via social media, specifically through Telegram.

The minor, a resident of central Israel, was charged in the Tel Aviv Juvenile Court with maintaining contact with a foreign agent and passing intelligence to the enemy, among other offenses.

According to the State Attorney’s Office, the teenager contacted the Iranian agent via a Telegram account in April 2025 in response to a message about a job he was interested in. The minor agreed to carry out the tasks for payment in cryptocurrencies that would be transferred to a digital wallet.

The minor opened four digital wallets, to which the agent transferred a total of over $1,170.

According to the charge sheet, the defendant took videos near Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center-Ichilov and in Ramat Gan, where an elderly couple was recently killed in an Iranian missile strike.

Additionally, he captured the location of the Kirya military headquarters in a video depicting Tel Aviv’s skyline.

The minor is also accused of posting graffiti messages across Tel Aviv, including one that read, “We are committed to the covenant.”

According to prosecutors, the teen was also asked to spy on Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar as he went about his day and to vandalize his home with the message, “We will take revenge in turn! Ruhollah’s children,” an apparent reference to Iran’s first supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini. The defendant told his Iranian contact that he couldn’t carry out the mission during the school year, and that it would have to wait until a vacation.

Prosecutors added that the Iranian agent even enlisted the 14-year-old to rent an apartment near IDF headquarters. Although the teen allegedly spoke with several landlords about renting in the area and sent the agent a photo of an apartment, he never secured one.

After being questioned, the minor tried to get a classmate to lie during an interrogation and say he was the one who had transferred him most of the money seized in his digital wallets, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors didn’t specify when the alleged offenses took place.

Most of the cases of alleged spying for Iran have been of individuals who allegedly carried out tasks and provided information in exchange for payment.

Last week, the police and Shin Bet announced that an IDF reservist serving in the Iron Dome air defense system was recently arrested and indicted on charges of spying for Iran.

A joint investigation by the police’s Unit for International Crime Investigations and the Shin Bet found that the reservist, 26-year old Raz Cohen from Jerusalem, was in contact with Iranian intelligence agents for about a month, and provided information about Iron Dome and other military sites to his handler during that time.

These included passing sensitive security information to the Iranian agent during December 2025, including details about how Iron Dome works, locations of Israeli Air Force bases, and the locations of Iron Dome batteries. Cohen also received payments in cryptocurrency in return for the information he passed to his handler, before he cut off contact with him in February this year.

The growing number of Iranian agents has prompted Israel to open up a new wing in Haifa’s Damon prison for those indicted on such spying charges.

Only one of the alleged spies has been convicted so far, as most cases are still making their way through the legal system.