It's March 1979 and a warm evening on a seaside pier about 50 miles north of Miami.

FBI agent Jack McCarthy is standing at the center of a yacht, surrounded by criminals

drinking expensive scotch and parking orders at waiters in white naval uniforms.

There are gamblers and swindlers, drug smugglers, members of the mafia, and even corrupt politicians.

Many of the men hobnobbing on the 65-foot yacht are connected to violent crime, and none

of them seem to have the slightest clue that McCarthy is working undercover, or that they've

all been baited into an elaborate ruse that could land them in prison for years.

The gathering tonight is all part of an FBI operation known as ABSGAM.

They put it together with the help of an informant named Mel Weinberg, who pitched an idea

for a highly unorthodox sting operation to catch white collar criminals.

Weinberg and undercover agents have been pretending to be connected to wealthy businessmen from

the Middle East.

They've met with some of America's most successful white collar criminals, offering

the fictional Arab Sheik's money to invest in criminal schemes.

And of course, they've gotten everything on tape, producing solid evidence for every

case.

But while the mission was initially supposed to focus on white collar crime, it quickly

broadened its scope.

Now ABSGAM is being used to go after corrupt public officials.

That was one of the reasons the FBI organized tonight's party on a yacht in Southeast Florida.

The Bureau wanted to bring together its targets for a lavish event that would really impress

them, and also introduce them to a second fictional Sheik behind the operations Bogus Company,

...