NEW YORK

The suspect had little money to speak of, was unable to pay his cellphone bill and scrounged for money to buy the drill bits that court papers said he needed to make his pipe bombs. He apparently needed a place to build the devices, and initially had trouble drilling the small holes that needed to be made in the metal tubes.

The suspect, Jose Pimentel, according to several people briefed on the case, would seek help from a neighbor in Upper Manhattan as well as a confidential informer. That informer provided companionship and a staging area so Pimentel, a Muslim convert, could build three pipe bombs while the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division built its case.

But it was the informer’s role, and that of his police handlers, that have now been cited as among the reasons why the FBI, which had its own parallel investigation of Pimentel, did not pursue the case. Terrorism cases are generally handled by federal authorities.

Several people briefed on the case, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because of the tense relations between the Intelligence Division and the FBI or because the case was continuing, said there was concern that the informer might have had too active a role in helping Pimentel.

Pimentel, several of the people said, also smoked marijuana with the confidential informant, and some of the recordings in which he makes incriminating statements were made after the men had done so. His lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, did not return a call seeking comment.

Asked about the FBI’s concerns, Paul J. Browne, a Police Department spokesman, said: “I’ve never heard that issue about the CI at all. I don’t think the person telling you that is familiar with the investigation.”

In the current case, federal agents were first told of Pimentel more than a year ago, or more, when the Police Department’s Intelligence Division asked the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force, staffed with police detectives and federal agents, if they wanted to pursue a case.

Then, in recent days and weeks, the Intelligence Division again approached federal agents when it became apparent that Pimentel had begun building a bomb. But the federal government again declined.

As late as Saturday, after Pimentel was arrested, the Intelligence Division invited the task force to interview Pimentel and view the partially constructed incendiary device, a person briefed on the invitation said.

In the task force, investigators were concerned that the case raised considerable entrapment questions, the person said, adding thatB some investigators doubted that Pimentel had even the small amount of money or technical know- how necessary to produceB a pipe bomb on his own, had he not received assistance from the confidential informer.