FBI agent Daniela Greene’s job was to investigate an Islamic State terrorist. The FBI agent did such an impressive probe of her target that she ended up falling in love with the jihadi, moving to Syria and marrying him. Somebody’s taking too many cues from Carrie Mathison.
Greene, who is a 38-year-old FBI translator with top-secret security clearance, was investigating ISIS fighter Denis Cuspert. He started as a German rapper with a stage name of Deso Dogg and once toured with DMX. He became radicalized and moved to Syria in 2013 so that he could join the Islamic State. Cuspert, who changed his name to Abu Talha al-Almani, appeared in a 2014 video where he pledged allegiance to ISIS. In one song he praised Osama bin Laden and threatened Barack Obama with a throat-slitting gesture and held a severed human head in a propaganda video.
From Vice:
On June 11, 2014, Green told her FBI supervisor in Indianapolis that she was heading to Germany to visit family. She then boarded an Air Canada flight bound for Turkey and proceeded to slip across the border into Syria. A month later, she married Cuspert and told him “that she was employed by the FBI and that the FBI had an open investigation into his activities,” according to court records.
From CNN:
Within weeks of marrying Cuspert, Greene, 38, seemed to realize she had made a terrible mistake. She fled back to the US, where she was immediately arrested and agreed to cooperate with authorities. She pleaded guilty to making false statements involving international terrorism and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. She was released last summer.
“She was just a well-meaning person that got up in something way over her head,” said Greene’s attorney, former assistant federal public defender Shawn Moore.
“Not sure if they told you that I will probably go to prison for a long time if I come back, but that is life. I wish I could turn back time some days,” she wrote on July 22, 2014, to an unidentified person.
Greene reportedly now works as a hostess in a hotel lounge.
“It’s a stunning embarrassment for the FBI, no doubt about it,” said John Kirby, a former State Department official.
Getting to know your target, you’re doing it wrong.
[CNN]