American Missing in Iran since 2007 A CIA Agent

Local Editor

The retired FBI agent who seemed to vanish in Iran seven years ago was in fact on a strange unauthorized mission for the CIA that was organized by intelligence agents who did not have the authority to do so, a shocking new report has revealed.

Robert Levinson, a former DEA and FBI employee who gathered intelligence in Latin America for the Central Intelligence Agency after leaving the bureau, was long believed to have flown to an Iranian resort in 2007.

Known as Kish Island, the small Persian Gulf outpost is known to be a place where tourists and international criminals mingle. Levinson then disappeared just days after meeting with an admitted killer, with the US government maintaining all along that his fate was that of a private citizen whose status was unknown.

Yet, in a report published Thursday, the Associated Press revealed that the popular narrative that has pervaded in the media for the last seven years was not entirely true. The White House, FBI, US State Department, and CIA would all learn that Levinson's trip was planned by three CIA analysts who did not follow the proper vetting process or seek approval for the mission from the necessary supervisors.

Levinson was paid to gather intelligence on US foes in South America and was paid by the CIA to gather intelligence on the Iranian government in 2007.
What is known is that he spent hours on Kish Island speaking with Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive wanted for the killing of a former Iranian diplomat in 1980, and had generated relationships with some of the most powerful people in Iran. Business records viewed by AP indicate that Levinson checked out of his hotel on March 9.

"I have been held here for three and a half years. I am not in good health," he said, turning emotional. "I need the United States government to answer the requests of the group that has held me for three and a half years."

Whether Levinson, who would now be 65 years old, is alive today remains unknown.
US officials have consistently denied that Levinson was operating in Iran on government work. Yet AP reported that the CIA paid Levinson's surviving family $2.5 million to delay a lawsuit against the government that almost certainly would have exposed his ties to the agency.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team