Afghan anti-corruption chief was drug dealer

Afghanistan's new anti-corruption chief has a shady past. Izzatullah Wasifi served nearly four years in a US prison for trying to sell heroin to an undercover agent in Las Vegas for $65,000. It is not the ideal resume for a man appointed to root out corruption in the country that is overwhelmingly the world's biggest supplier of opium, from which heroin in refined. Wasifi's past came out after an investigation by the Associated Press, which pieced the story together from court records. They revealed that in 1987, Wasifi was arrested at Caesar's Palace Hotel. Identifying himself only as "Mr. E," he tried to exchange a bag containing a pound and a half of heroin for $65,000 in cash, unaware the "customer" was a policeman. Wasifi was released on parole after three years and eight months. The government of President Hamid Karzai has refused to say whether it knew about the drugs conviction when Wasifi was appointed to his post two months ago. A childhood friend of Karzai, today he heads an anti-corruption office of 84 people. Wasifi has admitted he served time in a Nevada prison but claims the circumstances were different. He says he was arrested after his former wife bought cocaine for her own use and brought it to their Las Vegas hotel room.