When Robert Levinson retired from the FBI, he launched a new private investigation career that in 2007 took him to Iran, where he was kidnapped and believed held in Southwest Asia ever since.
At the time, U.S. officials suggested that a terrorist group was responsible for Levinson's disappearance, but that suspicion has since dramatically shifted to the Iranian government.
An unnamed intelligence official told the Associated Press the shift came when Levinson's family received a set of photos in 2011. They were delivered too well, the source says, with no mistakes and everything to suggest a professional spy network lay behind the abduction.
This week Levinson's wife, Christine, released the photos (below) because she feels not enough is being done to bring her husband home.
The full AP story outlines a complex and protracted ordeal. It includes the following example of why suspecting Iran all along might have made sense:
In one meeting between the two countries, the Iranians told the U.S. that they were looking for Levinson and were conducting raids in Baluchistan, a mountainous region that includes parts of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. But the U.S. ultimately concluded that the Iranians made up the story. There were no raids, and officials determined that the episode was a ruse by Iranian counterintelligence to learn how U.S. intelligence agencies work.
There is already some Twitter buzz that securing Levinson's return explains why a U.S. plane was detained in Iran last month, and why its detainment was kept secret for so long.
It shouldn't be long before that "connection" joins the additional rumors that the plane also held Hillary Clinton who hit her head during the emergency landing causing the blood clot, and that SEAL Cmdr. Job Price didn't commit suicide but was killed during the crash.
Those connections were made by the EUTimes, citing a Russian GRU report, at the end of December and went viral among alternative news circles for days. Even the reputable American daily newspaper The Salem News picked up the rumors, so it will be interesting to see if Ms. Levinson's cry for help will get the rumor mill churning once again.
One of the following pictures show Levinson prior to his kidnapping. The rest were sent to Christine Levinson showing her husband in an orange jumpsuit like those worn at Guantanamo.
SEE ALSO: The 25 most effective weapons in the US arsenal >
Please follow Military & Defense on Twitter and Facebook.