The Israeli Shin Bet security agency says it has exposed an “Iranian intelligence effort” to establish a spying operation in Israel under the cover of commercial activity.
In conjunction with the Israel Police, the Shin Bet says it arrested businessman Thaer Shafut, 32, a Jordanian national, who is originally from the Hebron area.
“It was learned that Shafut had entered Israel on behalf of Iranian intelligence in order to carry out missions designed to advance the formation of cells in Israel and in Judea and Samaria for use in covert Iranian activity,” says the Israeli agency’s statement.
The suspect first came into contact with Iranian intelligence when he was in Lebanon, with additional meetings taking place with his “Iranian handlers” during 2018 and 2019 in Lebanon and Syria, according to the Shin Bet.
Shafut is said to have been arrested in April but the Shin Bet’s announcement was not made until now, after the IDF Judge Advocate General’s Office filed an indictment earlier this month against the suspect in the Judea military court. He is accused of “contact with an enemy, contact with a hostile organization, and conspiracy to smuggle enemy funds into the area,” says the Shin Bet.
He had been instructed by his handlers, says the Israeli statement, “to establish a commercial infrastructure in Israel to serve as a cover for future Iranian activity, apparently to gain access to Israel and Judea and Samaria, and recruit spies to assist in gathering information pursuant to Iranian interests.”
Shafut was instructed to evaluate commercial possibilities and establish business connections, says the intelligence agency.
Israeli intelligence exposes Iranian spy network within Israel
Global News 
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