The other was their fear of retaliation from the U.S. government once its citizens started to die from the drugs, according to sources. Despite bin Laden's plan being thwarted, the DEA believes that al Qaeda continues to this day to traffic in drugs to fund a variety of its operations - including training, traveling and terror attacks. In 2002, then-DEA Director Asa Hutchinson said, "The DEA [has] received multi-source information that [Osama] bin Laden himself has been involved in the financing and facilitation of heroin- trafficking activities."