Yahoo! News - 12/12/13, Abby Ohlheiser, Wire
Robert Levinson, Who Disappeared in Iran in 2007,
Was Working for the CIA
Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran in 2007, was in the country working for the CIA, according to a report from the Associated Press's Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman. Levinson, whom the U.S. has said was in the country on private business as a private citizen at the time of his kidnapping, was actually on the CIA's payroll investigating the Iranian government. U.S. officials believe his captors are already aware of Levinson's connection to the CIA.
According to the report, Levinson probably shouldn't have been doing what he was doing. "In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules," the AP explains, Levinson was working for analysts who didn't have permission to run international spying operations for the agency. Levinson himself, a former Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agent, was not properly trained to undertake that work. Levinson worked as a private investigator after retiring from the FBI in 1998. Once the CIA figured out that Levinson was, however unconventionally, working for them, the agency apparently went to great lengths to keep the breach of protocol quiet, even as the news of Levinson's disappearance attracted substantial public interest:
More: news.yahoo.com
