Major crimes detective questioned on suspicion of contact with Iranian agent

A police detective in the Lahav 433 major crimes unit was questioned on suspicion of contact with an Iranian agent, the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) announced Wednesday.

The officer, a man in his 40s, is suspected of having interacted with a foreign agent seeking to recruit him as a spy for the Iranian government, according to Hebrew media outlets.

He was detained for questioning Tuesday night by investigators in the DIPI, a State Attorney’s Office body that probes police officers suspected of criminal activity.

He was placed under house arrest following his interrogation.

The case was opened after investigators were informed by Lahav 433 of the alleged contact between one of its officers and an Iranian agent. The probe is ongoing, the agency said.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the policeman claimed he started communicating with the agent unknowingly after receiving a message from him over the Telegram messaging app about a job offer.

When he was asked to record videos in different locations, the officer reportedly began suspecting the user was an Iranian agent and immediately informed his superiors, who ordered him to stop corresponding with the Telegram user.

The officer was detained on Tuesday and questioned for four hours, despite the incident having occurred some six months ago, Kan reported.

Lahav 433 — an elite investigative unit within the police tasked with tackling crime at a national and international level — has overseen investigations into many cases of alleged espionage by Israelis on behalf of Iran.

In April, Channel 13 reported that police established a new unit within Lahav 433 meant to handle Iran-linked espionage cases. Up until then, investigations had been handled by various police units based on tips received from the Shin Bet.

This is the first known instance in which a member of Lahav 433 was himself implicated in one of Tehran’s attempts to recruit homegrown spies.

Most Israeli recruits are spurred on by the promise of easy money and begin by carrying out mundane tasks — like filming and spraying graffiti in public areas. These requests typically escalate the longer the contact is maintained into more serious offenses, including espionage, intelligence gathering and even assassination plots.

The officer’s defense attorney, Liran Zilberman, insisted on his client’s innocence, saying that after he was contacted by a foreign agent, he “reported it to his commanders and the chain of command as is expected of him.”

“During the interrogation, he referred investigators to officials he had been in contact with in the police and law enforcement system, and after his version was verified, he was released home. Since the suspicion was disproven, we hope the case will be closed soon,” the attorney continued.