Avi Yanus
| Avi Yanus | |
|---|---|
| Image | |
| Born | May 1983 |
| Died | |
| Nationality | British |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | Private intelligence executive |
| Known for | Co-founder of Black Cube; director of the UK companies; Romania conviction, 2022 |
| Parents | |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Sibling(s) | |
| Education | |
| Predecessor | |
| Website | |
Avi Yanus (Companies House date of birth May 1983) is a co-founder of Black Cube and the director of its British companies. Nationality on the filings is British. Residence is Israel. The London footprint is the company seat, at City of London service addresses since 2012, and two leasehold flats at 163 Iverson Road, West Hampstead. In 2022 a Romanian court convicted him, in absentia, over a 2016 operation against the former anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi.[1][2]
Black Cube
He founded the firm in 2010 with Dan Zorella. Both are described as former Israeli intelligence officers. Yanus is the former IDF strategic-planning officer. They met as economics undergraduates at the Technion. He later took a PhD in organisational behaviour. The firm’s own description is a group of veterans of Israeli elite intelligence units, selling human intelligence for litigation and commercial disputes. By 2018 it claimed work in more than sixty countries. Offices are given as Tel Aviv, London, Madrid and, in a 2025 account, Singapore. In a court deposition he described former Israeli intelligence operators advising the firm and supplying a business network. Advisory names used by the firm have included Efraim Halevy, Yohanan Danino, Giora Eiland and the former City of London police commissioner Adrian Leppard. Meir Dagan was honorary president until his death in 2016.[3][4]
London companies
The British vehicles are in his name. Correspondence addresses on the file are Floor 26, 23 Yehudah Halevi, Tel Aviv; Dashwood House, 69 Old Broad Street, EC2M 1QS; and Citypoint, 1 Ropemaker Street, EC2Y 9HT. Those City addresses are the company seats, not homes.
| Company | Number | Status | Role | Appointed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B.C. Strategy UK Ltd | 08153977 | Active | Director | 24 July 2012 |
| Tzur Intelligence Ltd | 08785913 | Active | Director | 21 November 2013 |
| B.C. Strategy Europe Ltd | 10273752 | Dissolved | Director | 12 July 2016 |
| B.C. Strategy Holdings Limited | 10483521 | Active | Director | 17 November 2016 |
| B.C. Strategy International Ltd | 11453510 | Dissolved | Director | 9 July 2018 |
On the Holdings file he is the only officer, styled Dr Avi Yanus, correspondence address Dashwood House, residence Israel. Identity verification was completed on 8 January 2026 by Stuart Harris Associates Ltd. B.C. Strategy UK Ltd is the vehicle named on the Black Cube page as the English company used for operations.[1][5]
Iverson Road
Two flats in the same block are on the electoral and land records.
Flat XX, XXXX Iverson Road, NW6 2RB, is on the electoral roll for 2018–21, with a recorded purchase price of £750,000 on 14 June 2016. Flat XX, on the fourth floor, title NGL962015, was registered to him on 10 July 2018. The price stated to have been paid on 3 July 2018 was £840,000. He is the sole registered proprietor. A charge of the same date is in favour of National Westminster Bank. The lease is 999 years from 1 January 2014, dated 22 July 2016, originally between Iverson Road Ltd and Gareth Mark Toplis and Ioli Tassopoulou. A deed of 27 March 2020 between Grosvenor Freeholds Limited and Yanus varied the lease. The electoral roll has him at Flat 21 in 2022. A people-search extract records him as sole owner.[6]
Operations run from, or charged against, the London firm
The Romania case is the one with his name on the conviction. In March 2022 a court gave him, Zorella and Gal Farchi suspended sentences of two years and eleven months, after a plea, in absentia. The charge was forming an organised crime group that in 2016 tried to intimidate Kövesi while she headed the DNA anti-corruption agency. The operation was a Black Cube contract. The sentence is suspended. It is still a conviction of the co-founder, not of an unnamed operative.[2]
London is the jurisdiction of the companies that take the work. In a deposition filed in New Jersey in the dispute between Playtech and Evolution, he said the firm had been hired in 2021 by the London-listed gambling company to investigate whether Evolution was operating in prohibited markets. The opening fee he described was £400,000 for three months. A further £175,000, he said, was earned when a law-firm complaint was written up by Bloomberg in November 2021, which he called “a beautiful piece of article.” Evolution said the report contained false claims. The deposition is the firm’s fee structure in his own words: a retainer, then payments against pre-agreed goals.[4]
Other contracts attached to the firm, and so to the company he directs, include work for Harvey Weinstein in 2016 against women who had accused him, and work for the mining figure Beny Steinmetz. Israeli reporting has also described defence-ministry contracts in 2012–14 and work for Idan Ofer. Those are on the Black Cube page. The London point is that the English company and the City addresses are the public side of a firm whose operatives have used British cover identities for European jobs.[3][4]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Avi YANUS personal appointments, Companies House, officer ID IQDe9u5vmdV79hJjLhv7V8FdQAg, date of birth May 1983.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 3 Israelis from Black Cube intel firm given suspended sentence in Romania, Times of Israel, 21 March 2022.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Black Cube, Powerbase.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Inside Black Cube, Financial Times, 3 November 2025.
- ↑ B.C. Strategy Holdings Limited officers, Companies House, 10483521.
- ↑ HM Land Registry, title NGL962015, Flat XX, XXX Iverson Road, London NW6 2RB, accessed 3 October 2026.