Over the past few months, Israeli authorities have arrested and jailed at least 70 citizens suspected of carrying out acts of espionage for Iran. According to a feature investigation published by Haaretz, nearly all of the suspects were recruited via social media platforms, notably Telegram, and paid via cryptocurrency.
Nearly all the suspects come from low-income or marginalized socioeconomic backgrounds. None of them appeared to be motivated by ideology, and most were young; their average age was between 18 and 27, and two were minors. None had access to classified information.
Most of the detainees were “clueless,” as Haaretz put it. They believed they were responding to legitimate offers of employment and did not understand, even after they were asked to carry out various missions, that they might be dealing with bad actors who threatened Israel’s security. This is perhaps understandable, given that their handlers, who communicated with them in Hebrew, asked them to carry out tasks that seemed banal and meaningless. In one case, for example, a young man was asked to purchase and photograph a package of cigarettes; in another, he was instructed to send recorded video footage of a hotel lobby.
In nearly all the cases, the recruited “spies” were paid fees that amount to a few hundred dollars at most.
Social psychologists and veteran Shin Bet officers told Haaretz that the Israeli state’s failure to protect its citizens from the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, combined with the many widely reported acts of corruption committed by people at the highest levels of government, helped create a nihilistic mentality among these already marginalized young people, making them particularly vulnerable to anonymous bad actors on social media.
Using encrypted social media apps, bad actors have recruited young people to commit acts of political violence in other countries. In Canada and in Europe, shooting attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools and the U.S. consulate were carried out by young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who were enlisted online by anonymous actors. The perpetrators are “guns for hire,” often with criminal backgrounds, who do not appear to be motivated by any political ideology.
All of this speaks to a new kind of espionage that is cheap, nimble and efficient. No more honey traps, secret meetings and dead drops. With the new spycraft, everything is done online, from recruitment to payment, via messaging apps that are free to use. There is no need for any kind of physical contact between the handler and the perpetrator. Recruiters can easily disguise their identity and motivation, but it seems that the perpetrators are not interested in ethics, ideology or even joining a community. They are motivated by money, but are so financially strapped that they take the small fees they are offered.
The question now is whether intelligence services have the capacity to stay on top of this rapidly expanding online espionage world.