Word: abedi
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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...less than dynamic prosecution. But last week the department indicted B.C.C.I. and three bank officials, charging them with illegally taking over Independence Bank of Encino, Calif., and with fraud that contributed to the billion-dollar downfall of Florida's CenTrust thrift. Indicted with the bank were founder Agha Hasan Abedi, former bank president Swaleh Naqvi and B.C.C.I. front man Ghaith Pharaon. Since the U.S. stands little chance of extraditing Abedi from Pakistan and Naqvi faces charges in Abu Dhabi, Pharaon's indictment may be the most productive of the three. The Saudi national is believed to be holed...
...organizations had a strong human link as well, grounded in the friendship between B.C.C.I. founder Agha Hasan Abedi and Bank of America's A.W. (Tom) Clausen, who was chairman during 1970-81 and 1986-90. When regulators seized B.C.C.I. offices around the world last July, three of the seven directors on its board were former high-ranking Bank of America executives. On that same day, the California bank disclosed that it still had $177.4 million of B.C.C.I.'s money in its accounts...
...hope of gaining entree to Middle Eastern business, Bank of America backed the founding of B.C.C.I. by providing Abedi with $612,000 in seed money and the prestige of the then largest bank in the world. In exchange, the San Francisco bank got 25% of B.C.C.I.'s stock, seats on the bank's board of directors, and access to Abedi's extraordinary connections in the gulf states. By early 1974, Bank of America had boosted its ownership stake...
Arms dealers are not the only ones to describe a pact between Abedi's bank and China's weapons industry: according to State Department sources, China has also used B.C.C.I. as a middleman in Silkworm missile sales to Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The Silkworm missiles sold to Iraq and Saudi Arabia were equipped with sophisticated Israeli-manufactured guidance systems, the government sources say. Arms dealers who have done business with B.C.C.I. say its officers attracted illegal deals because the bank provided documentation and letters of credit for arms being shipped, for example, as agricultural machinery, and that it routinely...
...spite of the virtual global shutdown of B.C.C.I., the bank remains intact in its traditional haven, Pakistan. Though other press reports maintain that Abedi is physically frail and often incoherent, TIME has interviewed several business associates who say he remains a major figure in the international weapons trade. He has held a press conference within the past month, and is in the process of licensing a new bank in Pakistan, called the Progressive Bank...