Last fall I met several retired and serving F.B.I. agents who had worked with Levinson. I was reporting on a notorious Ukrainian-born businessman named Semion Mogilevich, who had earned the dubious distinction of making the F.B.I.’s Top Ten Most Wanted List. Mogilevich is, according to one Russian organized crime expert, the “high-end underworld financier of choice.” Before he retired, Levinson had become perhaps the most fearless, crusading agent against Mogilevich. “He’s dangerous because he’ll get anybody who gets in his way,” Levinson once said of Mogilevich, speaking to the BBC. “It’s become just a little personal hasn’t it?” the interviewer replied. “I’d like to finish the job,” Levinson said, smirking.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-is-holding-robert-levinson
Perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semion_Mogilevich made a deal with some Iranians that he met earlier:
An F.B.I. report on Russian organized crime said that when the Soviet Union withdrew its military forces from East Germany, many Russian generals sold their weapons to Mr. Mogilevich, who in turn sold them, at much higher prices, to countries like Iraq, Iran and Serbia.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/19/world/activity-at-bank-raises-suspicions-of-russia-mob-tie.html
If these Iranians were his counterparts it might explain why the Iranian government is unable to trace Levinson.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101008000445/http://www.fbi.gov/page2/oct09/mogilevich_102109.html
He was removed 12/17/2015 from the List after it was determined that he was located in Russia and no longer fit Top Ten criteria.
Thanks AdmSmith.
There’s a female whistle blower who was on the Levinson case who got in a spat with Andrew McCabe