The Itai Levy Child Molester Claim
Recently I saw that the claim was made on X that an Israeli cybersecurity CEO named Itai Levy had been arrested for ‘committing serious sexual offenses against children’ and when I went to check into the details, I quickly discovered there was a severe lack of any specific information on it.
What we have is only the article from Iran’s state broadcaster ‘Press TV’ which claimed on 10th April 2025 that:
‘An Israeli cyber company CEO has been arrested on suspicion of committing serious sexual offenses against children.
The Israeli media reported on Thursday that a sensitive investigation has been underway in recent days against Itay Levy, CEO of the cyber company Cornelius in his 50s, on suspicion of committing serious sexual offenses against children.
The investigation began after one of the victims, a child under 4, signaled to his parents that he had been harmed - and they contacted the police.
According to the findings discovered so far, there are at least 5 victims, all children under the age of 4.
The suspect was arrested after a professional child investigation. The suspect’s electronic devices were examined according to a warrant.
The findings of the digital investigation revealed a shocking picture on the suspect's mobile phone.
The storage devices found in his possession contained hundreds of pornographic films, images of genitals and children, as well as photographic documentation of serious acts committed by the suspect against minors, including a video allegedly documenting an act of sodomy.
Following the discovery of the severe findings, the parents of the minors were summoned to receive an update and a briefing from welfare officials.
It has been observed that such sexual crimes in Israel have increased since Israel launched its genocidal war against the people of Gaza on October 7, 2023.’ (1)
This was then picked up and repeated by Jordan’s ‘Al Bawaba’ on 13th April 2025 (2) with additional material covering the story’s reception of X after an account called @SuppressedNws spread the story on 11th April 2024 which is the only mention of such a story on the news sites.
Further @SuppressedNws didn’t cite its origin as being Iran’s ‘Press TV’ but instead reproduced this image:
The problem is that Israeli Channel 12 doesn’t offer their site in languages other than Hebrew and there is no record of a Hebrew article of this name or a similar article about Itai Levy in Hebrew when I searched for it using multiple different Hebrew terms in both Israeli Channel 12’s Hebrew news site and various different search engines.
Indeed, there are three things wrong with this image:
Itai Levy is CEO (and co-founder) of a cyber-security company called ‘KERNELiOS’ not ‘Cornelius’ (4) which sounds like someone thought ‘KERNELiOS’ needed to be translated into English (or ran it through a translation program) which is a mistake seen in the original ‘Press TV’ article. (5)
The photo of Itai Levy – and I can believe it is him based upon other photos I’ve found – (6) is allegedly used under ‘Section 27A of the Copyright Law’ but Section 27A of Israeli copyright law refers ‘Orphan Works’ – i.e., things where the copyright owner is unknown which wouldn’t include recent-ish publicly available photos such as that reproduced in the alleged article – (7) while ‘Fair Use’ (the normal designation for this kind of use) would be Section 19 of the Israeli copyright law not Section 27A. (8)
The banner of Israeli Channel 12 doesn’t look like that as it includes a substantial side bar and actually cut off two letters of part of it:
So, looking at this unless the Israelis have done a superb job of scrubbing the internet (it is possible just unlikely since even an Israeli government gag order would have trouble containing such a story nor have jewish critics of the Israeli government known for gag law evading picked it up); Itai Levy has not been arrested for child molestation and/or sodomizing a child. Instead, this seems to have originated as a non-specific claim from ‘Press TV’ – note they never tell us which ‘Israeli news site’ – that someone then photoshopped to look like it was a real news story from Israeli Channel 12.
I’d like to be wrong, but I don’t think I am sadly.
References
(1) https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/10/745931/Another-Israeli-CEO-arrested-for-pedophilia-and-sexual-assault
(2) https://www.albawaba.com/node/israeli-ceo-arrested-sexually-assaulting-1603079
(3) https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1910514988575301703
(4) https://www.linkedin.com/in/itay-levy-bb35a6124?
(5) https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/10/745931/Another-Israeli-CEO-arrested-for-pedophilia-and-sexual-assault
(6) https://www.crunchbase.com/person/itay-levy
(7) https://www.law.co.il/media/knowledge-centers/copyright_2020_israel.pdf, p. 5
(8) Ibid., p. 8
Good catch. I appreciate your careful attention to this story. We must not fall for fakery just because we want it to be true. These comments had me suspicious: "It has been observed that such sexual crimes in Israel have increased since Israel launched its genocidal war against the people of Gaza on October 7, 2023."