You couldn't make this stuff up: Heroin smuggler DEA informer terrorist (via @ProPublica)

So he turns out to be a terrorist - Pakistani father and American mother. DEA informer after being caught as a drug smuggler - and the DEA thought he was a good choice as an informer? It beggar's belief

from www.propublica.org

Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA

Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a DEA informant while he was training with terrorists in Pakistan.

Federal officials, who spoke only only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe.

Headley is the son of a Pakistani father and an American mother. He became a DEA informant in the late 1990s, after he was arrested on heroin charges. His U.S. wife told investigators that he told her that he started training with Lashkar in early 2002 as part of a secret mission for the U.S. government. On Saturday, a federal official said Headley’s work as an informant appears to have lasted until sometime between 2003 and 2005.

Another federal official said Headley was a DEA informant in “the early 2000’s.”

“I couldn’t say it continued into 2005, but he was definitely an informant post-9/11,” the official said.

In March, Headley pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism in the Mumbai attacks and to a failed plot to take and behead hostages at a Danish newspaper. He is cooperating with authorities. Read more at www.propublica.org