A senior Israeli government official was recently arrested in a sting operation targeting child sex predators in Nevada.
According to an August 15 press release issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, 38-year-old Tom Artiom Alexandrovich was one of eight people to be arrested in a “multi-agency operation targeting child sex predators” in Henderson, Nevada. All eight individuals face felony charges of “luring a child with computer for sex act.”
The charge is not a legal conviction of guilt. It is an accusation based on police investigations. In this case, a collection of federal, state, and local agencies participated in the operation. According to the press release:
The Nevada Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) joint operation included detectives and agents from the ICAC Task Force and the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, to include the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, North Las Vegas Police Department, Henderson Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Nevada Attorney General’s office who participated in organizing and conducting the operation in Henderson, NV.
The other men arrested in the bust were 40-year-old David Wonnacott-Yahnke, 35-year-old Jose Alberto Perez-Torres, 23-year-old Aniket Brajeshkumar Sadani, 23-year-old James Ramon Reddick, 29-year-old Ramon Manuel Parra Valenzuela, 46-year-old Neal Harrison Creecy, and 49-year-old John Charles Duncan.
Several news outlets — including Israeli media outlets The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and The Jerusalem Post — have confirmed that Alexandrovich, an Israeli resident, is a senior official in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal published an article with details of the operation based on the arrest report. According to that report, a law enforcement officer pretending to be a 15-year-old girl began talking to Alexandrovich through the “Pure” and WhatsApp applications on August 6. “The interaction turned ‘sexual in nature,’ and police allege that the suspect agreed to meet with the decoy, take her on a date to a Strip show and bring a condom,” the Review-Journal reported. Alexandrovich took a rideshare to an undisclosed meeting place, where the bust happened. He told FBI and Homeland Security agents that he thought he was talking to an 18-year-old woman. Moreover, he said “he felt the girl ‘pushed’ him to talk about bringing a condom yet could not remember how many times the girl ‘pushed’ him.”
Alexandrovich told law-enforcement agents that he was in town for the Black Hat USA 2025 cybersecurity conference. He posted a $10,000 bail payment “with no apparent conditions” before returning back to Israel.
The Times of Israel corroborated that Alexandrovich did return to Israel after he was released, and that he was not arrested afterward. The news outlet added:
The directorate added that it “had not yet received official details from US authorities,” and that “if and when such details are received, the directorate will act accordingly.”
And the Cyber Directorate issued the following statement to The Jerusalem Post:
The employee updated the directorate that during his trip to the United States, he was questioned by the US authorities on matters unrelated to his work, and he returned to Israel at the planned time of return. The directorate has not received additional details through authorized channels to date. Should such details be received, the directorate will act accordingly. At this stage, by joint decision, the employee has gone on leave to deal with the matter until things become clear.
Alexandrovich is a veteran computer professional with no prior record of criminal behavior, according to the Post. He worked in roles related to protecting computer systems and helped establish the “Cyber Dome,” a government program designed to protect civilians from cyberattacks. “His work included developing national cyber strategies, leading teams, and defending critical infrastructure against ongoing threats,” the Post reported.
The incident prompted public suspicion that the U.S. government intervened on behalf of Alexandrovich. But federal officials said that is not the case. The State Department announced Monday that Alexandrovich “did not claim diplomatic immunity,” and that “any claims that the U.S. government intervened are false.”
It is not uncommon for U.S. authorities to arrest foreign nationals on charges related to pedophilia and sex trafficking. But it is rare for U.S. authorities to arrest on said charges foreign nationals who are senior employees in foreign governments.
Alexandrovich’s arrest happened just days before FBI Director Kash Patel announced that since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the “FBI has arrested over 1,600 people for violent crimes against children, to include 270 arrests for human trafficking.”
In May, the FBI announced a bust that led to the arrest of 205 alleged pedophiles. Those included suspects “in positions of public trust — law enforcement, members of the military, and teachers.” More from the FBI:
In Minneapolis, MN, a state trooper and Army Reservist was arrested for producing sexual abuse material of a young child while wearing his uniforms. … In Washington, D.C., a former [Metropolitan Police Department] Officer previously convicted for sex trafficking was again arrested for doing the same thing. He’s accused of trafficking additional young victims while on supervised release. In Louisville, KY, two teachers were charged in separate incidents after alleged misconduct with students involving inappropriate communication and behavior.