Dance Between Media, Investigators Preceded Raid on Ptech

When federal agents raided a Massachusetts firm suspected of links to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network early Friday, ABC News got the exclusive footage. And thereby hangs a tale.

Eight news organizations knew of the investigation in advance and agreed to sit on the story, according to government sources. But the news outlet that had been working on the case the longest, the CBS station in Boston, wasn’t told that the raid was imminent.

“We were promised that because we agreed to hold off, we would be told before the raid was held,” said Joe Bergantino, a reporter for Boston’s WBZ-TV. “In the end that didn’t happen. We certainly were disappointed. We were lied to. It was an unsettling and disturbing development.”

The Quincy, Mass., software company, Ptech Inc., is a U.S. government contractor that is largely financed by Yasin al Qadi, a Saudi businessman accused of funneling millions of dollars to Al Qaeda.

The behind-the-scenes negotiations reflect the kind of delicate dance between law enforcement and the media that sometimes precedes high-profile arrests and drug busts. The resulting footage can cast the authorities in a favorable light while providing journalists with exclusive pictures.

“When a reporter learns of an investigation, you ask their help in not reporting it,” a Customs Service official said. In this case, “everyone said we don’t want to screw up an investigation. But at some point nearly every reporter said I’ve got to go with my story.”

WBZ began investigating in June when a local businesswoman who was considering doing business with Ptech contacted the FBI and, after getting little guidance about whether the firm was reputable, called the station. Soon Bergantino and government investigators were getting information from the same sources.

“We were essentially asked by the Treasury Department to hold our story for national security reasons,” Bergantino said. “A decision was made that it could jeopardize the investigation, and we agreed to hold back.”

In recent weeks, ABC and NBC also learned of the probe and agreed to the government’s request to withhold the news, officials at the networks said. NBC was staking out the area around Ptech.

Last week, the media may have spurred the authorities into action. “We discussed with them that we were getting impatient with this,” Bergantino said. “At one point, we said we were considering going” this week.

“There was never any threat,” he added.

ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross got word from his sources Thursday “that other news organizations had violated the agreement, and we should be aware something could happen in the next 24 hours.” A major snowstorm had shut down the New York airports, so ABC dispatched staffers by train to a parking lot outside the Ptech offices in Quincy.

“We stationed a camera crew in the vicinity, which late at night spotted a number of cars belonging to federal agents,” Ross said. “We waited for them to move and followed them into the site.” The raid went down at midnight -- less than 90 minutes after the crew arrived -- and Ross had the footage for his “Good Morning America” report Friday.

Bergantino, who had been told by his sources that nothing would happen Thursday night, was unable to report the story until Friday’s noon newscast. Officials at customs and the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston later told the station they had no prior warning of the raid, he said.

“I wish we’d had the phone call that another news organization had for the midnight pictures, but we’re the ones that had the full story,” said WBZ News Director Peter Brown. “We feel as if we made the absolutely right decision. To me, being first isn’t always the first choice. Being right is more important.”

But bragging rights are also important in television. The station’s Web site boasted that the “raid is the direct result of a WBZ4 I-Team investigation.”