On December 12, 2013, the Associated Press (AP) reported that their investigations revealed that Levinson indeed had been working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), contradicting the U.S. government's statement that he was not an employee of the government at the time of his capture, U.S. officials had publicly insisted that Levinson went to Iran as a private investigator, working a cigarette smuggling case.[12] AP had first confirmed Levinson's CIA ties in 2010.[13][14][15] He was on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission about the Iranian government for the U.S. government.