Robert Levinson is the victim of a cover story produced by the CIA who was left for dead after flying to a resort on Kish Island in Iran and disappearing for seven years after meeting with an admitted killer, an Associated Press investigation uncovered.
According to the AP, the United States has said Levinson was a private citizen who was just traveling the Persian Gulf for private business, but further investigations have shown he was actually working for the CIA.
The AP describes the two main categories in which the CIA divides itself as: analysts, who tie information together, and operatives who are out in the field gathering the information. But, according to the AP, it was a group of CIA analysts, who had no authority to run a spying operation which paid Levinson to gather information. It was on one of these trips that he vanished.
After Congress found out the truth behind Levinson's disappearance, it became one of the biggest scandals in CIA history and three analysts were removed from the agency, the AP reported. Seven others were "disciplined."
The Levinson family was paid $2.5 million in order to keep a lawsuit from going public and revealing information the CIA wanted to keep under wraps, the AP reported. Shortly after, the CIA drafted a new set of rules on analysts working with outsiders.
That was as far as the U.S. government went on finding and bringing back Levinson, saying "he's a private citizen involved in private business in Iran," in a 2007 statement after his disappearance, according to the AP.
Last month, the White House released a statement saying "Robert Levinson went missing during a business trip to Kish Island, Iran."
After receiving proof of life photos in 2010 and 2011, there has been no contact or proof that Levinson is still alive, with some government officials believing he's already dead, the AP reported. Despite the many years that have passed and the trail long gone cold, the FBI, where Levinson previously worked, claim they're still determined to bring him home.
Levinson, who would be 65 this year, has been held longer than any other American with a total of seven years, and officials say there are no new leads about his whereabouts or his captors, the AP reported. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also publicly stated he has no information about Levinson's whereabouts.
During his time working as a spy for the CIA, Levinson, who is a from Coral Springs, Florida, and a father of seven children, was told to stop mailing his packages to CIA headquarters, and instead mail them to the home of CIA analyst Anne Jablonski, for whom he was working,
He was instructed to email her personal account if he needed to follow-up on any matter, which Jablonski says was just to avoid the lengthy and timely CIA mail screening process, according to the AP.
During an interview Jablonski said she "didn't think twice about it," even though the normal way to speed up the ritualistic process is to open a post office box, according to officials, the AP reported.
According to the AP, if Levinson were only sending regular unclassified analytical documents, there shouldn't have been a problem with emailing, or mailing, them to the CIA.
Iran and U.S. relations have been tense since Levinson's disappearance leaving little room for any type of negotiations, and when Hassan Rouhani was elected last June, it sparked hope that his more moderate tone would allow for new leads, the AP reported.
But the new president's sentiments were the same as the former, and U.S.'s opinion. "He is an American who has disappeared, we have no news of him. We do not know where he is," Rouhani said in a statement in September, according to the AP.
