From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Investigative reporter. The words conjure up grizzled newsmen in dark trench coats meeting at midnight with "Deep Throat" sources. As professional journalists know, such glamorous notions are seldom accurate. Yet for TIME correspondents Jonathan Beaty and Sam Gwynne, who together unearthed and wrote last month's story on the scandal engulfing the Bank of Credit & Commerce International and this week's special report on the B.C.C.I. as well, the reality of chasing the yarn was as thrilling as the best detective fiction.

The story began in February while Beaty was having dinner with a trusted source in San Francisco. When the source mentioned possible illegal activities involving the B.C.C.I., Beaty immediately sensed a potential big story. "I was scribbling it all down on cocktail napkins, to the point where I had to keep asking the waiter for more napkins," Beaty recalls. "It first seemed unbelievable, but then almost all of it turned out to be true."

As the complexity and scope of the scandal became apparent, Beaty asked Detroit bureau chief Gwynne, a former banker and the author of Selling Money, a book about the international debt crisis, to become the other half of a reporting-writing team. Gwynne talked to federal regulatory agencies and banking sources in the U.S., while Beaty followed the B.C.C.I. paper trail to Atlanta, where he interviewed Bert Lance, and London, where he paid a visit to Scotland Yard. At the same time, TIME correspondents in bureaus around the world were tracking down leads in 11 countries, often going at several simultaneously. "This is by far the most exciting story I've ever worked on," says Gwynne. "It seemed as though every door we opened led down yet another bizarre trail."

Beaty got the same exhilaration from orchestrating the worldwide effort. "Investigative reporting is usually a rather lonely job," he says. "But in this case, because it was a truly global story, we were calling on our correspondents around the world."

When he was finally finished with the story, Jonathan pulled on his dark blue overcoat and headed out into the night. It seems the modern global electronic investigative journalist doesn't own a trench coat.