Once a CIA spy—always a CIA spy. The CIA spy, FBI agent and DEA operative is involved in the Mumbai massacre. Mr. David Coleman Headley is an American citizen and worked for various organs of the US Government. Mr. Kasab was an individual, another stateless actor. However Delhi’s anger is on Pakistan and not the USA.

“It is very strange that the US did not inform us of Headley’s visit to India in March this year when he, by their own account, had been under their surveillance since at least September 2008,” the official said, pointing out that India would have arrested the terrorist had it known about his identity.India agencies,” the official said. Times of India

“We suspect that the reluctance is because Headley was a double agent and the Americans may not like him to be exposed to

American terror suspect David Coleman Headley, charged with scouting targets for Mumbai terror attacks, worked as a confidential informant with the Drug Enforcement Administration for more than a decade, according to a US media report.

The relationship began with his first arrest back in June 1988, when customs agents at the Frankfurt airport pulled aside an intense and striking young man waiting to get on a plane back home to Philadelphia, McClatchy Newspapers reported Monday.

“They suspected he had heroin in his suitcase. They were right – two kilos’ worth from Pakistan, hidden under a false bottom,” the report said. He wasn’t tough to crack: Before the day was out, Daood “David” Gilani decided to save his own skin, agreeing to betray his drug-dealing partners by helping US drug agents set up a sting,” it said.

It was the beginning of a complicated, off-and-on relationship as a confidential informant with the Drug Enforcement Administration – one that lasted more than a decade.

In fact, Gilani was so helpful as a DEA informant in the late 1990s on heroin imported from Pakistan, according to records and Inquirer interviews, that prosecutors made a rare move: They ended his probation years early, allowing him to travel freely.

But while Headley has been arrested, Americans may be loath to allow Indians direct access to him and not just for the fear of uncomfortable details of their previous collaboration. Times of India

New details are emerging about the strange double life of Headley, the son of a Pakistani broadcaster and a Main Line socialite who would spend evenings holding court and drinking splits of champagne in her bar, the Khyber Pass, McClatchy said.

He was briefly married to a Philadelphia woman in the 1980s whom he met at the bar, who, like a lot of other young women, was mesmerised by his dark skin and piercing eyes – one blue, the other brown.

The collaboration, investigation by US media suggests, deepened in the following years and Headley was allowed to go to Pakistan soon after 9/11 terror attacks on the US. In his new role, he is suspected to have worked for the CIA which has huge covert operations going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In any case, DEA and CIA agents working in Af-Pak region routinely segue into each other’s roles to fight terrorism fuelled by proceeds of opium smuggling. Times of India

He later became a heroin addict, and twice was caught smuggling the drug into the country by the DEA, in 1988 in Frankfurt, Germany, and in 1997 in New York. Both times, he got off with a lighter sentence by testifying against his partners.

It quickly became clear to federal law enforcement officials in New York that Headley knew a great deal about the heroin trade between the US and Pakistan and was willing to cooperate, McClatchy said. Headley worked as US agency informant for a decade, Indo-Asian News Service, Washington, December 15, 2009, First Published: 13:04 IST(15/12/2009), Last Updated: 16:33 IST(15/12/2009)

Headley, who moved extensively in Pakistan and Afghanistan and can be a reservoir of information for the US counter-terrorism effort, is also suspected to have made it plain to Americans that his cooperation was contingent upon his being kept off limits for Indians.

There is an appreciation of the compulsion of US agencies. The fact that it was FBI which tipped off about Lashkar’s plans and was crucial to the breakthrough in the 26/11 probe is also widely acknowledged.

But there is growing frustration with the delay in accessing information about and from Headley. In fact, the official’s criticism came on a day when FBI’s fresh chargesheet against Headley’s co-accused Rana listed details that the American agency had initially not shared with their Indian counterparts. The document filed by the FBI in a Chicago court seeking Rana’s continued detention mentioned Gujarat’s Somnath temple and Bollywood stars among targets identified by Lashkar.

FBI’s chargesheet against Headley was silent about these targets. “Why are they sharing things in bits and pieces on a matter that is so crucial for us”, said another official familiar with the details of the cooperation with the American investigating agency.

The matter has even acquired political dimension with CPM, known for its anti-US stand, pouncing upon it. The matter was raised by Brinda Karat in Rajya Sabha.

Headley’s dealings with US agencies dates to 1988, almost 10 years before his arrest in New York, when he caught in Frankfurt for smuggling drugs. He was handed over to DEA. Even then, he got off with a lighter sentence by testifying against his partners.
Referring to those arrests, Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday reported, “It quickly became clear to federal law enforcement officials in New York that Headley knew a great deal about heroin trade between US and Pakstan and was wiling to cooperate. Headley went to work for DEA, making heroin cases against at least three Pakistani men”.

Indian investigators, meanwhile, found that Headley during his multiple visits to India had spent a lot of money running into lakhs of rupees through credit cards issued by American banks and in fake Indian currency, believed to have been brought from Pakistan.

“It is found during the probe that in most of the instances where Headley had paid cash amount, a few currency notes in the entire payment would be fake which he had procured during his trips to Pakistan”, said an official.

Indian investigators are now trying to find out who had paid his credit card bills in the American banks. Times of India