Word: abscam
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...another FBI sting. The public sequel to Operation Abscam and Operation Brilab was Operation Miporn, an abbreviation of Miami pornography. This time, the FBI opened a little pornography business in Miami called Golde Coaste Specialties, Inc., and began buying sex books, movies, video tapes. After 2½ years of investigation, the FBI last week got indictments against 45 alleged pornography merchants in ten states. Said one official: "This wiped out the whole top echelon of the pornography business...
...results of such sweeps-and the FBI now has 50 sting operations under way-are not necessarily that permanent. In the Abscam probe that rocked Congress the previous week, there was little new action except a probe of who had leaked the story. In the Brilab investigation that disclosed official corruption in Louisiana and Texas, high state officials paraded before a grand jury and professed their innocence of all wrongdoings...
...Another topic was to have been how to recover Mafia dominance of the narcotics traffic. The FBI had hoped that much of the discussion would have been picked up by FBI microphones planted around the hangouts of Marcello, who was to have been host for the meeting. But when Abscam blew into the headlines, the wary Mafia called the whole thing...
Like the mysterious stranger in Mark Twain's tale, the FBI brought a bag of gold to tempt politicians. Did those who fell for the Abscam sting have only themselves to blame or can they, like Hadleyburg, blame the stranger for leading them astray? This question lies at the heart of the uproar over the tactics used to catch public officials in the act of allegedly taking a bribe. Did they willingly commit a crime, if indeed a crime was committed, since the charges have not yet been filed? Or were they tricked into wrongdoing by a Government...
Apart from the legality, there is an ethical question of whether the FBI carried the Abscam sting to the point of inducing the politicians to take bribes. It was not the usual sting. The agency was not simply participating in ongoing criminal activity. To some degree, it set up the conditions for the crime. The bounteous Arab sheik was strictly the creation of the bureau. The targets of its probe were sometimes subjected to a pretty hard sell-never by the FBI, but by contacts who were anxious to set up deals with the high-spending sheik. When Middleman Joseph...