The Haifa District Court on Monday sentenced 28-year-old Dimitri Cohen of Haifa to eight and a half years in prison for contact with a foreign agent and seven additional counts of attempting to pass information that could help the enemy. The case was handled by the Haifa District Prosecutor's Office and involved activity during the war with Iran and its proxies.
Cohen was arrested in May last year in a joint operation by the Shin Bet and the Coastal District's Lahav 433 unit of Israel Police. According to the indictment, he had looked for work online in spring 2025 when a man calling himself “David” offered him paid jobs, 500 dollars per task, with payment in cryptocurrency. “David” claimed to run a private investigations firm called “Jupiter” and first assigned him surveillance work in Tirat Carmel.
Cohen was told to buy an operational phone and SIM card, then used them to communicate with the foreign operative, speaking Russian with a heavy Caucasus accent and receiving calls from Russian and Portuguese numbers. He was initially instructed to photograph private homes, the Bahá’í Gardens and Haifa Bay, then to document major roads across Israel, including Highway 2, Highway 4, Highway 40 from Beersheba to Mitzpe Ramon, the route from Kibbutz Samar to Eilat, Eilat port and ships in Eilat Bay. The court said he also filmed road signs, power lines, infrastructure and the Hadera power station.
Cohen later edited some of the videos and deleted footage showing military bases and sensitive sites after realizing the material had security value. Still, the judges said the collection and transfer of the images could aid an enemy and create a broader intelligence threat. The panel, Judges Erez Porat, Nitzan Silman and Rebekka Izenberg, said he had suspected from the start that the contact was working for Iran and repeatedly “closed his eyes” to warning signs, including foreign phone numbers, unusual payments, friends’ and his partner’s warnings, and his inability to find the supposed investigation office.
In sentencing, the court said the punishment must be tougher during wartime, noting the growing pattern of Israelis being recruited online and through Telegram by hostile actors. The judges also considered that Cohen had no criminal record, expressed remorse, acted for money rather than ideology, and refused one more assignment near Eilat port after grasping its seriousness. His prison term is counted from his arrest on 27 May 2025, and he also received three years suspended.
