The American Spectator: Full video of Murtha's Abscam meeting

Abscam (sometimes ABSCAM) was a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation run from the FBI's Hauppauge, Long Island, office in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The operation initially targeted trafficking in stolen property but was converted to a public corruption investigation.

The investigation ultimately led to the conviction of a United States Senator, five members of the House of Representatives, one member of the New Jersey State Senate, members of the Philadelphia City Council, and an inspector for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The FBI set up "Abdul Enterprises, Ltd." in 1978. FBI employees posed as Middle Eastern businessmen in videotaped talks with government officials, where they offered money in return for political favors to a non-existent sheikh. A house (4407 W St. NW, Washington, D.C.), along with a yacht in Florida and hotel rooms in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, were used to set up meetings between various public officials and a mysterious Arab sheikh named "Kambir Abdul Rahman" who wanted:
To purchase asylum in the U.S.
To involve them in an investment scheme
To get help in getting his money out of his country

Much of the operation was directed by Melvin Weinberg, a convicted con artist, who was hired by the FBI for that purpose. It was the first major operation by the FBI to trap corrupt public officials; up until 1970 only ten members of Congress had ever been convicted of accepting bribes.

On February 2, 1980, NBC Nightly News became the first media outlet to break the story that FBI personnel were targeting members of Congress in a sting operation. The FBI had codenamed the operation "Abscam", a contraction of "Abdul scam", after the name of the company.


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