The Missing Spy
For certain true crime fans, this one included, stories involving espionage are ridiculously appealing. Unfortunately, given the nature of espionage, bona fide tales of spies and their craft are hard to come by.
But in March 2007, one spy did something you’re never supposed to do. He got caught.
To completely understand the disappearance of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, you have start with the 1980 assassination of an Iranian dissident in Bethesda, Maryland.
Ali Akbar Tabatabaei had been an Iranian diplomat under the Shah. Tabatabaei and his family, like many high ranking officials, including the Shah himself, fled to America and were granted asylum by the Carter administration. Not content with allowing the new Islamic Republic to remain in power, Tabatabaei began orchestrating a counter revolution from his Maryland home.
It’s debatable how successful Tabatabaei’s revolution actually would have been, but by 1980 his activities drew the ire of Ayatollah Khomeini. The decision was made to kill Tabatabaei.
The hit was outsourced to an American convert to Islam that worked as a security guard at Iran’s remaining diplomatic mission in Washington.
Dawud Salahuddin (known in Iran as Hassan Abdulrahman) was born David Belfield in North Carolina but grew up in the Long Island area. He found his way to Islam during the Civil Rights Era, becoming active in various student groups and met with prisoners to convert them to his beliefs. Salahuddin eventually found employment with the Iranian government and accepted the assignment to kill Tabatabaei. In terms of complication, the Tabatabaei assassination ranks pretty low. Salahuddin knocked on the front door of Tabatabaei’s home dressed as a US postal employee. When an associate answered instead, Salahuddin calmly asked for Tabatabaei. When he appeared, Salahuddin shot Tabatabaei three times in the stomach. He died 45 minutes later.
For his service, Salahuddin claimed he was paid $5,000 and given passage to Iran via Canada and Switzerland. His life in the Islamic Republic has largely been successful. He married and became a journalist, then an editor and, strangely enough, later became an actor. Salahuddin doesn’t express regret or remorse over his actions, telling The New Yorker in 2002, “It was an act of war. In Islamic religious terms, taking a life is sometimes sanctioned and even highly praised, and I thought that event was just such a time.”.”
And so Salahuddin continued leading his quiet life, occasionally granting interviews to western journalists, until he was contacted by a former FBI agent for a meeting on the Iranian island of Kisha.
Robert Levinson’s path to the island started in the 1970s as a DEA agent. After six years, he joined the FBI, becoming an expert in counterfeiting and Russian crime syndicates. He started a family and retired in 1996 after nearly 30 years in law enforcement.
For years following Levinson’s disappearance, many questions remained. One of the biggest involved his reason for being in Iran in the first place. Salahuddin claims that Levinson was attempting to make contact with Iranian officials on behalf of a tobacco company that wanted help curbing cigarette counterfeiting in the region. It’s a plausible enough story. Salahuddin is in a unique position made him a perfect intermediary between an American company and the Iranian government. Of course, it was a total lie.
In 2010, the Associated Press and Washington Post broke the news that Levinson was working as a CIA contractor, receiving $85,000 a year. It’s unlikely that Salahuddin knew this when he agreed to meet Levinson. Salahuddin himself was detained by Iranian officials and released the next day. He reported the same people had taken Levinson into custody.
To convolute things further, the Iranians related numerous statements denying they even had Levinson. In 2007, his wife and son were allowed to enter the country to conduct their own investigation. They reportedly received cooperation from the government while there. Other statements, most notably by then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seem to confirm they do indeed have Levinson, only to move back from those comments.
The AP/Post investigation came to the conclusion that Levinson was likely investigating corruption of Iranian officials for the CIA, which makes sense considering the story he told Salahuddin. For their part, the US government has denied that Levinson was their employee at the time of his disappearance. The CIA did, however, pay his family $2 million to prevent a lawsuit.
There isn’t a lot of light illuminating the world of espionage. Almost ten years after Levinson’s detention, all we know for certain is that a shattered family is still seeking answers about a loved one. For what it’s worth, the US government still believes Levinson is alive. But after a decade of diplomatic missteps and general misinformation, the soon-to-be 69-year old may not have much time left.
Though working for the CIA at the time of his capture, if killed it’s unlikely he’ll receive a star on the wall of the Agency’s Langley headquarters.
Andrew Egan is writer and editor of Crimes In Progress. His work has appeared in Forbes Magazine, ABC News, Atlas Obscura, Tedium, and more. You can read his article, “Any Which Way but Down or A Fair Amount of Male Nudity in the American West” in the December 2016 issue of Blue Skies Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. His novel, Nothing Too Original, is available now for Kindle and paperback.
Donate to Crimes In Progress and help support great content!
