[MestaMachine]

The five photographs were taken in April 2011, just months after the family also received a video that was emailed anonymously.

Mr Levinson, a private investigator, disappeared in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish. The Iranian government has repeatedly denied knowing anything about his disappearance.

However, the consensus among US 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.

An expert on Russian organised crime, Mr Levinson, who would now be 64, retired from the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that took him to the Iranian island of Kish, where he was last seen.

Kish is a popular resort area and a hotbed of smuggling and organised crime. It is also a free-trade zone, meaning US citizens do not need visas to travel there.

Mr Levinson's wife, Christine, decided to release the images because she felt her husband's disappearance was not getting the attention it deserves from the US government.

"There isn't any pressure on Iran to resolve this," she said. "It's been much too long."

She said that because her husband disappeared in Iran, she believes he is still being held there.

"It needs to come front and centre again," she told The Associated Press. "There needs to be a lot more public outcry."

She said she has met with Barack Obama and John Brennan, the president's nominee to head the CIA. She said that both men had pledged to do everything they could to free her husband. Now, nearly six years after his disappearance, she thinks Iran is being let off the hook.

"He's a good man," she said. "He just doesn't deserve this."

[MestaMachine]

Another forgotten American on bo’s watch.
Video at link.

[RadiationRomeo]

Am I the only one that thinks the sign text is photoshopped? I have no idea why it would be.

[PLMerite]

“He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007...”

Cigarette smuggling, really? That smells if nothing else does.

[ILS21R]

I don’t believe the cigarette smuggling story... but my guess was that he was probably being held on the extreme SE part of Kish Island.

[no-to-illegals]

Mesta ... the cigarette smuggling angle ... IIRC the cigarette smuggling was confined to the U.S. The cigarettes were stolen and then resold, at a price less than retail. The money was then wired out of the country from resulting money from the stolen cigarettes. This was one way the money was collected via criminal enterprise. There were numerous other ways but this was one which was relatively clean. Another criminal enterprise which operated in the U.S. was computer sales. Computers and computer parts were stolen from retailers and then resold in another location (was an actual store) run by arabs. Then money was funneled to terror organizations. I have given up two of their methods of operations. There were and are many others. btw ... since zer0 and his crowd came in ... investigations are down on these types of activities. Can produce no links ... the media is not going to discuss any of these types of activities. May be a bit off topic. Beginning to lean toward this guy was still an FBI agent work to crack a money zone collection point, and our government cannot or will not admit iran was running these types of operations within U.S. borders.

[gaijin]

1. Fingers - the fingers are placed very deliberately. It might be a type of code. However is it likely that such details would be missed by the releasers of the photos? It could be a faux clue designed to throw potential rescuers off the proper trail, i.e., they simply ordered him to hold each panel in each manner we see here.

2. The multiple panel formula here seems designed specifically to provide for numerous holding combinations —very suspect. Why not a single large panel containing all messages...?

3. The release of these photos has a financial goal, or more likely causing the US to do something the hostage takers wish, or to stop some activity (bringing down Assad, which was why some say Iran funded the Bengazi attack).

4. It’s likely Obama is now doing nothing to help this guy, and has been doing nothing, short of admonishing the family they’re moving heaven and Earth to help him.

[GOPJ]

I’m guessing Dubai - pronounced due-bAy...

[Jane Long]

By the look of his pallor, it appears he’s extremely sunlight and nutrient deficient. His fingers look waxy.

[piasa]

At the time this FBI retiree disappeared in 2007 the US, Iraq, Iran and the UK had been involved in a tit for tat prisoner grab. The UK had had some sailors captured, etc, and the US had grabbed some Iranian operatives.

What's really bad is that what leverage we really did have against Iran the Obama admin decided to give back to Iran...apparently receiving no one and nothing in return. Was this release an effort by our unbelievably stupid Obama admin to appease Iran by showering it with the gift of these men an effort gone awry?

We caught these Quds guys in January 2007 in Irbil, Iraq, and Bush refused to return them because Iran was conducting terror operations in Iraq. Then Obama gets inaugerated... Obama Frees Iranian Terror Masters, National Review ^ | July 1ith 2009 Posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 10:34:18 PM by Steelfish 5 Iranian Officials Released by U.S. Return to Iran, Fox News ^ | 07/12/2009 | Fox News Posted on Sunday, July 12, 2009 1:59:05 PM by Dallas

[MinuteGal]

The heartless, soul-less Obama will throw good Americans under the camel in the Middle East just as easily as he throws them under the bus here.

Leni

[piasa]

Interesting that Levinson is/was? an expert on Russian organized crime...

2009 to 2011 : (OLEG DERIPASKA [See PUTIN, CHRISTOPHER STEELE, BRUCE OHR] COOPERATES WITH THE FBI IN TRYING TO RESCUE RETIRED FBI AGENT LEVINSON [See CIGARETTES, HEZBOLLAH], AND IS FINALLY ALLOWED A US VISA, WHICH IN PREVIOUS YEARS WAS DENIED TO HIM DUE TO HIS RUSSIAN MAFIA TIES, TO ENTER THE US) ...By that time, Deripaska already had proven himself helpful to the FBI. As I’ve written previously, based on numerous U.S. sources, he cooperated with the bureau from 2009 to 2011 and spent more than $25 million of his own money on an FBI-supervised operation to try to rescue retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who was captured in Iran while working as a CIA contractor.
U.S. officials and Levinson’s family told me that Deripaska’s efforts came close to securing Levinson’s freedom before the State Department scuttled a deal. The former agent has never been heard from again....
... Deripaska — like the many foreign business figures to whom U.S. intelligence has turned for help over the decades — is not without controversy or need. The State Department tried to keep him from getting a U.S. visa between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those allegations and claims FBI agents told him in 2009 that the State Department file blocking his entry to the country was merely a pretext.
Whatever the case, it is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska regained entry to the United States. And he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show.
We now know that, on multiple occasions during those visits, the DOJ and FBI secretly collaborated with Deripaska in the hope of getting help, first regarding Levinson, then on Ohr’s matters, and finally on the Manafort case. U.S. officials told me they assumed Deripaska let Putin’s team know he was helping the U.S. government and that his motive for helping was to keep visiting America.
-—— Russian oligarch, Justice Department and a clear case of collusion, thehill.com, By John Solomon, Opinion Contributor, August 28, 2018

&&&&

I wonder if Deripaska was actually sent to recover him or if Deripaska may have been the guy Levinson was investigating in the first place.