Hacker Brian Salcedo has just discovered that the bloke who talked him into an abortive scheme to steal customer credit card numbers from the Lowe's hardware chain was an FBI agent.

Salcedo, who is four years into a nine-year prison term parked outside a Lowe's in Southfield, Michigan and tapped into the store's unsecured WiFi network. The court was told that Lowe's detected an intrusion and called in the FBI, who watched the store.

Salcedo says he started getting cold feet when he realized that Lowe's network administrators had spotted him, but he was talked into carrying on by a buyer for the credit cards called SoupNazi. SoupNazi, who claimed to have links with organized crime, more or less threatened Salcedo and his partner and said  it was too late to turn back.

SoupNazi turned out to be Albert Gonzalez, 27, who's the alleged mastermind of a series of WiFi-based intrusions into U.S. retailers, including TJ Maxx, OfficeMax and DSW. But when he threatened Salcedo, he was also working for the feds and aided in the 2004 arrest of 28 fraudsters linked to the credit card fraud supersite Shadowcrew.com.

More here.