The New York Times:

By Isabel Kershner

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 antigovernment slogans around his neighborhood, including one comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.

Mr. 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 the police and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. Mr. Victorson and Ms. 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.

Mr. Victorson and Ms. Bernstein, 19, are now on trial, charged with maintaining contact with a foreign agent, vandalism, arson and, in Mr. Victorson’s case, a terrorist act of conspiracy to murder.

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