PAKISTAN
Pakistan was the home of almost all of BCCI's top officials, including founder Agha Hasan Abedi. Long before BCCI itself was started by Abedi, he began the practice of making pay-offs to politicians as a mechanism for securing business and strengthening his banks.
For example, when Abedi formed the United Bank in 1959, he appointed as chairman of its board I. I. Chundrigar, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was a close confidante of Pakistani's then current prime minister, Ayub Khan. Abedi maintained close ties to Khan's government, later hiring General Khan's minister of information to become the "publisher" of a BCCI promotional magazine, "South."(85)
When the Pakistani military government was replaced following the civil war that resulted in the severance of East Pakistan into Bangladesh, Abedi became just as cozy with Pakistani "socialist" Ali Bhutto, Khan's ideological opposite, making political payoffs on behalf of Bhutto during elections.(86) When Bhutto was overthrown in 1978 in a military coup, Abedi swiftly changed allegiances again to Bhutto's successor, Islamic "puritan" General Zia.(87) Zia later executed Bhutto for financial crimes, in which Abedi, among others, was clearly involved, while forming close ties to Abedi, on whose financial skills he increasingly relied.
The relationship was personal as well as professional. A sample BCCI payment to General Zia was obtained by the Subcommittee, showing BCCI's branch in the United Arab Emirates making a payment to Zia of 40 million Pakistani rupees — several hundred thousand dollars — on May 26, 1985.(88)
The BCCI-Pakistan relationship was important to both the bank and a succession of Pakistani governments. Although Abedi had been close to Bhutto, and formed a close relationship with the current President of Pakistan as well, it was General Zia was who in charge of Pakistan during most of BCCI's existence, and General Zia who did the most for BCCI. As Nazir Chinoy, who was based in Pakistan in the late 1970's and early 1980's, recalled:
Every time Mr. Abedi came, he always called on President Zia. President Zia did not meet Abedi during office hours, but in the night when Mr. Abedi would fly in, they would finish official dinners first and I would be sitting with Abedi and Abedi would leave for two to three hours and meet with Zia. It was the President Zia that he spoke to first before speaking to the finance minister. I think that Abedi used Zia and Zia used Abedi also for the gulf countries, when he wanted some assistance. It was a two way street.(89)
The Pakistani government guaranteed BCCI's ability to push aside immigration and customs requirements for its distinguished Arab visitors on their holidays in Pakistan, and BCCI's ability to engage in profitable banking. In return, BCCI assisting Pakistan in violating monetary controls imposed on its government by international organizations. As Chinoy explained:
In 1979, Pakistan was very short of foreign exchange, and under pressure from the World Bank to devalue the rupee. The World Bank had placed credit ceilings. The total lendings by commercial banks were limited to a figure by the World Bank. For BCCI's lending, the figure given was $750,000 US. This was just not viable to maintain. We had large deposits and had large surplus funds. Mr. Abedi was very keen that these limits go up. The World Bank would increase the limits each quarter based on how much foreign exchange Pakistan was able to generate based on central bank records. If the dollar reserves of the country went up, the World Bank would allow larger lendings in rupees. I am not sure who was the brains behind it, Mr. Abedi or Naqvi but between the two of them they came up with the idea. $50 million would be placed with BCCI Pakistan through BCCI's Kuwaiti affiliate, KIFCO. BCCI transferred money to KIFCO. I have a feeling that KIFCO got the money from Caymans. In any case, Kifco placed the money with BCCI Karachi.(90)
Thus, according to Chinoy, BCCI used an affiliate which was officially separate from BCCI, but secretly controlled by it and owned by it, to launder BCCI funds from one BCCI location to BCCI Pakistan, in order to make it seem as if BCCI Pakistan had generated an extra $50 million in legitimate deposits through this paper transaction. BCCI reported the extra $50 million to the Pakistan central bank, which in turn reported it to the World Bank to show the a $50 million increase in Pakistan's dollar reserves from abroad.(91)
A similar account of these transactions is described in the indictment of BCCI's top officials by the New York District Attorney on July 29, 1992. According to that indictment, the amount involved in all totalled $100 million.(92)
Zia died in a plane crash in mid-August, 1988, leaving a vacuum in relationships that BCCI very much regretted. Among BCCI officials, it was generally believed that if Zia had still been alive in October, 1988, he would have used his influence with the U.S. government to soften the handling of the case against BCCI in Tampa.(93)
With Zia gone, BCCI was not left without resources in Pakistan, however. The man who became President, Ishaq Khan, had served as chairman of the BCCI Foundation throughout the 1980's, and had close ties to Abedi.
The relationship between BCCI, the Pakistani government, and the BCCI Foundation had been deeply entangled from the start. As in the Bangladesh version of the BCCI Foundation, the Pakistani BCCI Foundation was created as a means of sheltering BCCI profits from taxation. In 1981, it received tax-free status while Ishaq Khan was Pakistan's minister of finance. In turn, the foundation received BCCI's profits from Pakistani operations, and then used some of those profits to finance projects the Pakistani government wanted and could not pay for itself. For example, BCCI provided $10 million in grants in the late 1980's to finance an officially "private" science and technology institute named for Pakistani President Ishaq Khan, whose director, A. Qadir Khan, has been closely associated with Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. The institute is believed by some experts to be the headquarters for Pakistan's efforts to build an Islamic bomb. In the same period, other BCCI officials were assisting Pakistanis in purchasing nuclear technologies paid for by Pakistani-front companies through BCCI-Canada.(94)
The Foundation also made payments to somewhat less political entities, such as $3 million dollars for an "investment" in Attock Cement, a private cement company in Pakistan ostensibly owned by BCCI front-man Ghaith Pharaon, but in fact a front for BCCI itself. As BCCI officer Nazir Chinoy testified:
this foundation was set up . . . with the government of Pakistan nominating as the chairman, one or two trustees from the public and two or three from BCCI management . . . 90 percent of [BCCI Pakistan’s] pre-tax profits being generated in rupees [were] given to the Foundation. It is a lot of money. . . .A charitable foundation is not subject to the same audit strict audit procedures or scrutiny by the central bank or the state bank of Pakistan. . . it becomes an opportunity to get employment. If you want to do somebody a favor, you could put him on the staff of the foundation and find a job for him.(95)
Among other officials whose activities were financed by BCCI in Pakistan were Jam Sadiq Ali, the highest ranking official in the province of Sind — where Karachi is located — whose personal expenses were financed by BCCI for years of self-exile in London, and who defended BCCI and Abedi after its collapse.(96)
Yet another high-ranking Pakistani official placed on BCCI's payroll after his government service was Pakistan's former Ambassador to China, Sultan Khan, who was provided a job at BCCI at its representative office in Washington, D.C. There, according to BCCI records, Khan solicited business for BCCI and its secretly-held subsidiary, First American, from the Chinese Embassy and Chinese officials in the mid-1980's, sponsored occasional events on behalf of the Chinese to which he invited prominent Americans, and had lunch with foreign diplomats who controlled accounts whose business BCCI was interested in acquiring. By the late 1980's, Khan continued to go to BCCI's Washington representative office, but according to him had little to do there beyond reading the newspapers and picked up his paycheck until the office closed after BCCI's indictment in Tampa.(97)
According to BCCI's former head of Latin American and Caribbean operations, Akbar Bilgrami, such appointments of retired Pakistani officials were typical.
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