Supposed photos of supposedly captured FBI agent -- WTF?

[Nordic]

Everything about this is just fucking strange:

http://gawker.com/5974225/these-shockin ... ret-prison



The headline screams:

These Shocking ‘Guantanamo’ Photos of Kidnapped FBI Agent Robert Levinson Were Probably Taken in an Iranian Secret Prison

Nearly six years after the disappearance in Iran of private investigator Robert Levinson, and two years after his family received an anonymous email confirming that the former FBI agent was still alive, five photographs taken by Levinson's captors have been released. "I am here in Guantanamo," reads a sign Levinson is holding in one photo. "Do you know where it is?"

According to U.S. investigators who spoke with crackerjack AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, yes they do: Levinson is probably in an Iranian secret prison.
Two years later, with the investigation stalled, the consensus now among some U.S. officials involved in the case is that despite years of denials, Iran's intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family. The tradecraft used to send those items was too good, indicating professional spies were behind them, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly. While everything dealing with Iran is murky, their conclusion is based on the U.S. government's best intelligence analysis.

Levinson's family released the photos to the AP now because his wife believes that the government could be doing more to find her husband, who disappeared in 2007 while investigating cigarette smuggling on Kish, an Iranian island. Iranians have publicly denied holding Levinson, and claimed to have conducted raids in an effort to find him, but the U.S. believes the raids were simply "a ruse by Iranian counterintelligence to learn how U.S. intelligence agencies work."

However, the very first comment below reads:

rwisaak and 32 more Reply
Something seems strange here - why do these images match almost 100% to the "computerized" image seen here from an article in March ([www.thecambodiaherald.com]) that claims to be only a "depiction" of what he'd look like today?

The hairstyle matches too perfectly for one to be a rendering based on a 5+year old photo, and the other to be an actual recent photo. Not a hair out of place on his head or beard?

He or she is not kidding. Check out the photo:

http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/world/ ... E3ZGRjYzlm



Almost a perfect match. The hair, the beard. It's like someone's idea of a joke. Maybe it IS some kind of joke. If you go to the page that shows the photo, you can click on it to make it bigger. I don't know how to embed that particular link.

Here is the text from the old article that shows the "computerized" version of what he should look like now:

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2012 (AFP) - Five years after a retired FBI agent disappeared while on a trip to Iran, the head of the US law enforcement agency offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the safe return of Bob Levinson.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Iran to help with the search and welcomed "the assistance of our international partners in this investigation."

"The US government is committed to Mr. Levinson's safe return and we will continue to use all available resources until he is home and reunited with his family," Clinton said in a statement.
"We also call on the government of Iran to uphold its promise of assistance and help safely return Mr. Levinson to the United States."

Levinson flew to Kish Island, Iran, on March 8, 2007 to look into cigarette counterfeiting while working as a private investigator for a major corporation. He disappeared the following day.

Iran's elite military force, the Revolutionary Guards, has denied reports that it was holding Levinson and the foreign ministry has said it would aid in the search for "humanitarian" reasons.

US officials believe Levinson is being held in southwest Asia -- likely in the border areas of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan -- and is launching a publicity campaign there using billboards, radio messages and flyers to publicize the reward.

"Though he is retired from the FBI, Bob remains a member of the FBI family to this day," FBI director Robert Mueller said at a press conference on the steps of the agency's Washington headquarters.

"His family is our family," Mueller said, as he was joined by Levinson's wife and flanked by dozens of agents.

"We in the FBI will continue to do all that we can to ensure Bob's safe return to Christine and their family, to his FBI family, and to the country that he has served so well and so diligently for 28 years."

A proof-of-life video was sent to his family in 2010 in which Levinson appeared weary and thin but unharmed. It was the first substantial evidence that he is alive and being held against his will.

"I have been treated well, but I need the help of the United States government to answer the requests of the group that has held me for three and a half years," Levinson said in the 54-second clip in which he is shown seated in front of what appears to be a grey concrete wall.

"I am not in very good health. I am running very quickly out of diabetes medicine," he said, his voice quavering. "Please help me get home. Thirty-three years of service to the United States deserves something."

FBI officials examined the video for clues, including Levinson's remarks that a "group" was holding him hostage, suggesting it may be a terror network or crime cartel rather than a government.

A former US State Department official familiar with the case said last year that the video was accompanied by a demand for the release of several US-held prisoners.

"We hope this reward will encourage anyone with information, no matter how insignificant they may think it is, to come forward," said James McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office.
"It may be the clue that we need to locate Bob."

The FBI is currently stumped.

"We have no information about who are the captors, who has him and where he is physically located," McJunkin told reporters, adding there have been "no demands made" and the lack of progress is "very frustrating."
Levinson's family insisted they would never give up hope.

"Our goal is to get Bob home. We miss him every single day," said Christine Levinson, his wife of 37 years.

Levinson, who marks his 64th birthday on Saturday, has seven children and two grandchildren and his lengthy absence has weighed heavily on the family.

There is "no word to describe the nightmare" his family has been living since Levinson's disappearance, she told reporters.

"Our youngest son is about to graduate from high school," Christine Levinson added in a statement. "He was in middle school when his father disappeared."

This looks like one of those photos where you can photoshop anything you want onto the paper that is being held up. I mean, seriously. And what's with the fake little chains? And the brand-new-looking jumpsuit?

This whole thing is just bizarre as hell. Thought I'd share it.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I think it indicates US intel services already had this photo and it is rather older than claimed. It makes sense that they would not disclose their possession of that information, and to the credit of the FBI's crime labs, using an actual current photo is a very effective method for guessing what someone might look like today.

I think it's plausible that SAVAK wanted this photo public for psyops reasons and chose a very cruel means of ensuring that.

"Bizarre as hell" is a good summary. Last night I ordered "The Twilight War," a history of the US government's 30 year Jihad against Iran. Looking forward to it.

[JackRiddler]

Why do you say SAVAK? Clever, I'm sure.

I think it indicates US intel services already had this photo and it is rather older than claimed.

Yes.

Also, the orange jumpsuit looks new and clean because he doesn't normally wear it, since of course he's not actually in Guantanamo or in the US federal prison system. His captors dressed him up in it for the photo only.

.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Am I mistaken in my assumption that SAVAK is the name of Iran's primary intelligence agency?

[JackRiddler]

Am I mistaken in my assumption that SAVAK is the name of Iran's primary intelligence agency?

Under the Shah it was. Did they keep the name?

[Wombaticus Rex]

There's a The Who video I should append to this, eh?

Meet the new boss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_o ... rity_(Iran)

Thanks for the info, Jack! I have been carrying this misconception around for years. It also figures prominently into an article I hadn't finished yet....lucky fuckin' me.

Edit: it's also LULZ that their english acronym is the phonetically ripe MISIRI.

[JackRiddler]

A-ha! So you're fallible.

I thought you were making a joke about what the real background to this may be. Given that the "evidence" he's being held by Iranian secret agencies is that the FBI says it's "probably" so. And they're Iranian! QED

[Nordic]

It makes sense that they would not disclose their possession of that information, and to the credit of the FBI's crime labs, using an actual current photo is a very effective method for guessing what someone might look like today.

Now there's some rigorous intuition.

I almost feel kinda stupid I didn't think of that. Seems painfully obvious in retrospect!

I bow to your superior mind. Seriously.

[justdrew]

who was supposedly paying him to investigate smuggling cigarettes?

(is tobacco grown outside the US much?)

[Nordic]

I would assume that was a cover, and a lousy one at that.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Nordic, I am confused by your sarcasm. Is there an alternative explanation (that does not involve time travel) ?

Edit: Sorry, let me rephrase: Is there an alternative explanation that my superior mind has somehow managed to overlook by the sheer scale of its own grandeur?

[Nordic]

I wasn't being sarcastic. I swear. You came up with a very clever solution to something I could not figure out. Especially since it dealt with images, something I consider to be a bit of a specialty of mine, I was deeply impressed. And, honestly, embarrassed I hadn't thought of it!!

So, kudos.

With that particular element of the story solved (at least to my mind) it seems clear that whoever is holding this guy is taking a certain joy in mocking the U.S. and the FBI.

And that the US hasn't a clue, but has decided to at least get some propaganda value out of it by claiming he's being held by those evil Iranians. Which is certainly possible, but who knows. The guy could be in Siberia for all anybody knows.

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Family of American who vanished in Iran sees plusses in disclosure he was working for CIA

Levinson Family via AP

An undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson shows the retired-FBI agent who vanished on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011.

By Pete Williams and Mike Brunker, NBC News


Friends and relatives of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared in Iran more than six years ago, say they hope new disclosures that he was working for the CIA will lead to more action to get him home.

“Bob is a courageous man who has dedicated himself, including risking his own life, in service to the U.S. government,” Levinson’s family said in a statement provided to NBC News. “But the U.S. government has failed to make saving this good man’s life the priority it should be.”

The Associated Press and Washington Post reported Thursday afternoon that Levinson, who the U.S. government has long insisted was visiting Iran as a private citizen, was actually working for the CIA when he vanished after a meeting on Iran's Kish Island on March 9, 2007.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But officials familiar with Levinson's case now confirm the published reports that he was on a mission for the CIA, though one that wasn’t officially sanctioned by the agency.

The AP reported that Levinson, 65, was working for analysts who didn't have permission to run international spying operations for the agency, calling the operation “an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules.”

It also said once the CIA figured out that Levinson, a former Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agent, was on the agency’s payroll, CIA officials apparently went to great lengths to keep the breach of protocol quiet, even as the news of Levinson's disappearance attracted substantial public interest.

Both the AP and Washington Post accounts said the CIA officials who dealt with him had no authority to approve his mission, which involved investigating the Iranian government. They said 10 agency employees have since been disciplined.

The CIA declined to comment on the articles.

The only known traces of Levinson surfaced two years ago, when family members released still photos and a video they'd been sent, in which he pleaded for help:

"I have been held here for three and a half years,” the former FBI agent said in the video. “I am not in very good health. I am running very quickly out of diabetes medicine."

Iranian officials have steadfastly denied knowing anything about him.
When NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell interviewed former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010, she asked, "Is he alive?"

"I should ask this question,” Ahmadinejad replied. “I don't know. We don't know. How can we know that?"

More recently, Alireza Miryousefi, counselor to Iran’s mission to the U.N., told NBC News on Nov. 26 that Tehran has worked with Levinson’s family to try and get to the bottom of the strange case.

“Iranian organizations had worked with his family to find out where is Mr. Levinson," he said. "We are interested too to find out why Mr. Levinson was in Kish."

But with a new, more moderate President Hassan Rouhani in charge in Iran, U.S. officials tell NBC News they had hopes of a getting more cooperation in finding Levinson.

They say they also strongly urged the AP against running a story about Levinson's work for the CIA, saying they feared it could put his life in danger.

In a statement Thursday, National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said, “Without commenting on any purported affiliation between Mr. Levinson and the U.S. government, the White House and others in the U.S. government strongly urged the AP not to run this story out of concern for Mr. Levinson’s life. We regret that the AP would choose to run a story that does nothing to further the cause of bringing him home. The investigation into Mr. Levinson’s disappearance continues, and we all remain committed to finding him and bringing him home safely to his family.”

In its own statement, the AP said that while it has been impossible to judge whether publication would put him at risk, the importance of the story — about CIA mistakes — justifies publication.

“Publishing this article was a difficult decision,” said the AP’s Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. “This story reveals serious mistakes and improper actions inside the U.S. government’s most important intelligence agency. Those actions, the investigation and consequences have all been kept secret from the public.”

Carroll acknowledged the possibility that publication of the report might put Levinson at risk.

“It is almost certain that his captors already know about the CIA connection but without knowing exactly who the captors are, it is difficult to know whether publication of Levinson’s CIA mission would make a difference to them,” she said. “That does not mean there is no risk. But with no more leads to follow, we have concluded that the importance of the story justifies publication.”

Related: Ex-FBI agent Levinson marks sad milestone in captivity

Levinson’s family members took a positive approach on the report in their statement, saying that they hoped it would prompt the U.S. government to step up efforts to bring him home.

“There are those in the U.S. government who have done their duty in their efforts to find Bob, but there are those who have not,” it said. “It is time for the U.S. government to step up and take care of one of its own. After nearly seven years, our family should not be struggling to get through each day without this wonderful, caring, man that we love so much.”

[seemslikeadream]

Last man to see Robert Levinson before he vanished denies involvement in disappearance

Karl Vick / Washington Post via Getty Images
Dawud Salahuddin is seen in the waiting area of a Tehran restaurant in a July 2006 file photo.

By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
An American fugitive who met with Robert Levinson shortly before the former FBI agent vanished during a secret CIA- sponsored trip to Iran in 2007 has resurfaced, calling the U.S. intelligence agency "the world's leading terror apparatus" and denying any role in Levinson’s disappearance in an email sent to NBC News.


Dawud Salahuddin, wanted by U.S. authorities in connection with the 1980 murder of an Iranian exile in Maryland, said in the email from Iran that Levinson's disappearance "has absolutely nothing to do with me." He also said he did not alert Iranian officials to a meeting he had with Levinson at a hotel on Kish Island on March 9, 2007. Salahuddin is the last person known to have seen the former FBI agent before he vanished, which has long prompting speculation that he may have tipped off Iranian officials to Levinson's visit.
"Personally, I have nothing to say except that I did not contact any Iranian official and would rather be dead than an asset for the world's leading terror apparatus, i.e, the CIA," Salahuddin wrote. He was responding to an NBC News inquiry into what he knew about Levinson’s fate in light of multiple press reports this week that the former FBI agent was on a secret, unauthorized mission for the CIA when he flew to Iran.
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Salahuddin, a native New Yorker and convert to Islam, fled to Iran after being accused of shooting Ali Tabatabai, a former U.S. press spokesman for the shah of Iran.
Salahuddin was allegedly disguised as a postman, shooting the former diplomat in the doorway of his home in Bethesda , Md., three times. He later confessed to the murder, saying it was justified by “jihad,” in an interview in the New Yorker magazine in 2002 by Ira Silverman, a former NBC News producer.

The family of Robert Levinson has more questions about his whereabouts after a man Levinson met in Iran resurfaced and sent a surprising email about him. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.
In recent years, Salahuddin has reportedly been running the website of PressTV, an Iranian government TV station.
Associates of Levinson have confirmed to NBC News that when he flew to Iran he was seeking information for the CIA about allegations that senior Iranian officials, including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had stolen millions of dollars in Iranian oil revenue and secretly invested the funds overseas.
One source that Levinson had hoped to tap was Salahuddin, according to Silverman, who helped arrange the meeting between the two men. (Silverman had remained in touch with Salahuddin after penning the the 2002 article for the New Yorker.)
"They had a mutual interest in corruption," said Silverman in an interview Saturday. "I said to both of them, 'you guys might want to talk to each other.'"
The meeting between Levinson and Salahuddin has been considered by U.S. law enforcement officials as key to unravelling the mystery of what happened to Levinson. Levinson’s wife and one of his sons even met with Salahuddin during a visit to Tehran in 2007, but the fugitive said little and provided no useful information, according to Dan Levinson, Robert Levinson’s son.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Iranian government said Saturday that the disclosures about Levinson's CIA connections were a "scandal" because the new reports "contradict what U.S. officials as well as some congressmen were telling us."
The spokesman, Alireza Miryousef, the chief of the press office for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, also repeated the Iranian government's longstanding mission that it knows nothing about Levinson's whereabouts. "In the past few years, (Iran) has been tring to find any clue about Levinson's situation for humanarian and security reasons, but no success," Miryousefi said in an email to NBC News.

[seemslikeadream]

Who Was Robert Levinson Working For?
A spy story with all the bells and whistles: money-laundering, organized crime, and "rogue" CIA agents

by Justin Raimondo, December 16, 2013

In August of 2007, former FBI agent and freelance investigator Robert Levinson traveled to the Iranian island of Kish, a resort hangout for smugglers and various dubious characters as well as tourists – and promptly vanished. For years, the US government stoutly maintained Levinson was on a private business trip, but now it turns out he was on a mission launched by a "rogue" CIA unit to gather intelligence about the "corruption" of moderate Iranian leader and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The Associated Press, which broke the story, has apparently known the real facts – or some version of them – for years, along with the New York Times, which ran a similar story the day after, but held back from publishing it at Washington’s request. The ostensible reason for the embargo: the hope that Levinson, presumably being held by the Iranians, would be returned to his family. Now that doesn’t seem to be in the cards: indeed, there’s some question about whether the Iranians – who deny all knowledge of his whereabouts – are holding him, or whether he’s in Pakistan or some other part of the Middle East.

Wherever he is, the real story here is Levinson’s murky "mission" and how he came to be on the CIA payroll. Our story begins with Levinson’s friendship with one Anne Jablonski, who worked for the CIA’s Illicit Finance Group: Jablonski, like Levinson, is an expert on Russian organized crime, and the two spent a lot of time together with their respective families. Jablonski eventually managed to get her friend a CIA contract dealing with various murky doings in South America, and Levinson established a relationship with the Illicit Finance Group unusual by CIA standards. Analysts, such as those in the Illicit Finance Group, and covert agents are separate: analysts don’t send out undercover agents on missions – they are supposed to simply receive information and, as their title suggests, analyze it. Not so in this case: Jablonski and her colleagues, including unit chief Tim Sampson, regularly sent Levinson out on missions to Panama, Canada, and Turkey without the knowledge of their superiors, collecting intelligence and in effect running their own mini-CIA. Instead of sending his "product" to the CIA, Levinson sent it to Jablonski’s home. As the AP reports:

"The whole arrangement was so peculiar that CIA investigators conducting an internal probe would later conclude it was an effort to keep top CIA officials from figuring out that the analysts were running a spying operation. Jablonski adamantly denies that.

"The internal investigation renewed some longtime tensions between the CIA’s operatives and analysts. The investigators felt the analysts had been running their own amateur spy operation, with disastrous results. Worse, they said the analysts withheld what they knew, allowing senior managers to testify falsely on Capitol Hill."

When the Levinson family tried to find out what had happened to him, and made efforts to secure his release, members of Congress became involved and demanded an explanation: CIA officials testified they had no knowledge of Levinson’s connection to the CIA, and denied he was on a US government-approved mission. Now that the truth about Levinson’s relationship with the Illicit Finance Group has come out, the family – and Congress – are asking questions and demanding Washington make efforts to free him part of its diplomatic outreach to Tehran.

Yet the question everyone should be asking is: how did a sub-group within the CIA come to exercise such freewheeling autonomy? If CIA officials really didn’t know Levinson was on a mission for the Illicit Finance Group, then the question arises: why the heck not? The CIA was paying him, and reimbursing him for his outlay of funds: how did Jablonski and her colleagues as the Illicit Finance Group get away with running what appeared to be their own private CIA?

The murk gets even murkier as we look at the details of Levinson’s alleged investigation into Iranian "corruption." Levinson was tasked by the Illicit Finance Group with finding information that might embarrass top Iranian officials, and he believed he had a lead when he was contacted by Ira Silverman, a retired NBC newsman, who offered to put him in touch with one Dawud Salahuddin, who supposedly had information on Rafsanjani’s money-laundering activities.

Silverman authored a 2002 New Yorker piece about Salahuddin, a.k.a. David Theodore Belfield, a then 29-year-old African-American convert to Islam, who purportedly assassinated an Iranian diplomat, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, former press attaché to the Iranian embassy: Tabatabai had become a vocal opponent of the Islamist regime in Tehran. Although the FBI put out an all-points bulletin on Salahuddin/Belfield, the assassin managed to make it to Geneva, where he had to wait a week to get an Iranian visa so he could travel to Tehran.

Ask yourself: how often does it happen that an FBI all-points bulletin fails to stop an accused murderer at the border?

In any case, Salahuddin/Belfield made it to Tehran, where he has been ever since – and where Silverman, for some reason, was given extensive access to him.

So here we have the following elements: a "rogue" CIA effort to discredit the moderate Rafsanjani; an American refugee from justice who is touted as a link to "moderate" elements in Iran but seems more interested in discrediting them; and a campaign to get Levinson released by the Iranian authorities in the midst of sensitive negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that has hard-liners in both the US and Iran in an uproar.

Where have we seen this "rogue" intelligence apparatus in action before? Why, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when the "Office of Special Plans" and the "Counter Terrorism Policy Evaluation Group," among others, did an end run around the CIA and "stove-piped" erroneous cherry-picked "intelligence" about Iraq’s alleged "weapons of mass destruction" right up to the highest levels of the US government, where it was turned into talking points.

In the case of the Illicit Finance Group, the same pattern occurs: within the larger intelligence community, an obscure sub-agency with a mind of its own pursues its own agenda – with productive results for the War Party. A CIA investigation shows Jablonski and her colleagues did their best to cover up Levinson’s activities on their behalf. Jablonski was fired, along with several of her co-workers, and a good number of others were "disciplined."

I don’t know who the Illicit Finance Group was working for, but it wasn’t the US government. And I would just add this: the efforts of Levinson’s family and friends to discover his whereabouts and secure his release have employed the assistance of some of the world’s most dubious characters, whose dubiousness is all of the same color. The New York Times reports they enlisted Boris J. Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and then on to Canada. In 1995, Birshstein reportedly set up a week-long "summit" for big time Russian Mafia chiefs in Tel Aviv. Another major player in this campaign: Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States – except for two visits in 2009, which the FBI allowed in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson. Deripaska wanted a deal whereby he would aid the effort on Levinson’s behalf in exchange for being allowed to enter the US. During his 2009 visit, Deripaska took the opportunity to meet with Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, but in the end the State Department prevailed over the Justice Department and Deripaska remains persona non grata in the US.

The Deipaska-Birshstein-Mafia connection failed to bring any results: no one knew whether Levinson was dead or alive. However, in 2010, Silverman received an email with a video of Levinson, and another one later with a picture of Levinson dressed in the orange garb of a prisoner.

So what’s the significance of this remarkably opaque story?

The Levinson-Jablonski Illicit Finance Group clearly represented a major security breach for the CIA. It seems beyond dispute that this "rogue" unit inside the CIA wasn’t working on behalf of the US government, but rather in the interests of some other government or private entity eager to discredit the Iranian government, and particularly interested in tarring Iranian moderates such as Rafsanjani.

What country or interest group has an interest in discrediting and otherwise spying on Iran’s alleged perfidious activities? What country has shielded Russian Mafia figures such as Michael Cheney, granting them asylum and immunity from prosecution by Russian and Western law enforcement? What country’s intelligence agency has a record of aggressive spying in the US and wouldn’t hesitate to infiltrate the CIA itself if it served their purposes?

There’s something illicit about the Illicit Finance Group: I invite my readers to figure out what it is.

If you peruse Silverman’s New Yorker piece on Salahuddin/Belfield, it reads like a typical anti-Iranian propaganda piece, depicting Tehran as the epicenter of terrorism and its rulers as ruthless murderers who wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter their opponents even on US soil: in this it resembles the recent cock-and-bull story about an alleged Iranian attempt to bomb a popular Washington DC restaurant in order to kill the Saudi ambassador.

And of course it’s just a coincidence that the issue of Levinson’s disappearance – and the fact that the CIA paid an agent to discredit Rafsanjani and other Iranian moderates – has been revealed just as sensitive negotiations between Washington and Tehran have reached a critical juncture.