James Cavanaugh was an ATF agent and supervisor for 33 years before retiring in 2010. By James Cavanaugh For ticklethewire.com Law-enforcement, security and intelligence professionals must have a forward-looking approach in the current climate of world events. Now is the time for police and intelligence personnel to think critically about the year ahead. While…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com A retired British businessman will be extradited to the US after losing a High Court battle, reports the Mail Online. Christopher Tappin, 64, faces charges of conspiring to sell parts for Iranian missiles in the US, which he denies. In fighting extradition, he claimed entrapment by the FBI, which a British…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The missing caper involving retired FBI agent Robert Levinson who vanished in Iran in 2007 , took another dramatic turn Friday. The Associated Press reported that the family website posted a video of the family issuing a plea to his unknown kidnappers along with a hostage video of Levinson, 63,…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Radio frequency modules from a Minnesota manufacturer, after being smuggled into Iran, ended up in improvised explosive devices used against U.S. soldiers on the battlefields of Iraq, federal authorities alleged this week. Authorities in Singapore arrested Wong Yuh Lan (Wong), Lim Yong Nam (Nam), Lim Kow Seng (Seng), and Hia Soo…
By Joby Warrick and and Thomas Erdbrink The Washington Post The straight-out-of-pulp-fiction plot by alleged Iranian operatives to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington was so badly bungled that investigators initially were skeptical that Iran’s government was behind it, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Officials laying out the details of the case owned up to their…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The Justice Department on Tuesday afternoon announced that FBI and DEA agents had foiled a plot linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old Iranian-American, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force– a unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Could the release by Iran of two American hikers help spur the release of missing retired FBI agent Robert Levinson? Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla) hopes so. Fox News reports that Nelson fired of a letter on Sept. 22 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to press the issue at…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The wife of Robert Levinson, the ex-FBI agent who went missing from an Iranian island in 2007, posted a letter “To my dear husband Bob” on the Internet on Friday to commemorate their 37th wedding anniversary. The letter from wife Christina noted how painful the whole ordeal has been. The U.S….
