As the indictment alleges:
. . . members of the BCC Group, acting to further the conduct and affairs of the criminal enterprise, assisted various nations, including Pakistan, Senegal, Zambia and Nigeria, to evade fiscal restraints placed on them by such world institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. . . . The BCC Group agreed to bribe employees, agents and fiduciaries entrusted with Third World money to place it at risk in the BCC Group, which was insolvent.
Members of the enterprise sought to secure a preferential position for the BCC Group in various countries through the use of corrupt payments of monies and other benefits to powerful individuals and to make and cause to be made deposits of money with the BCC Group. Specifically, defendants Abedi and Naqvi plotted to deliver cash and other benefits to countries' finance ministers, head of countries' central banks and senior executives of international and regional organizations to obtain deposits. . .
Among the countries in which members of the BCC group made such corrupt payments for deposits and favorable treatment were the Congo, Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, the Ivory Coast, Argentina and Peru. Among the institutions defrauded were the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank and the Economic Cooperation of West African States.(2)
Similarly, over the past four years, the Subcommittee has developed extensive documentary and testimonial evidence of BCCI's systematic reliance on relationships with, and as necessary, payments to, prominent political figures in most of the 73 countries in which BCCI operated. BCCI records and testimony from former BCCI officials together document BCCI's systematic securing of Central Bank deposits of Third World countries; its provision of favors to political figures; and its reliance on those figures to provide BCCI itself with favors in times of need.
As BCCI's former senior official for the Caribbean, Abdur Sakhia, testified:
BCCI's strategy globally had been to be very well-known, to make an impact in the marketplace, to have contacts or relationships . . . with all the people who matter. . . You name it, we would develop relationships with everyone of consequence . . . In the Caribbean, every major country I knew the heads of state, I knew the finance ministers, I knew the governors of the central bank. I knew heads of all the major banks in the area, the heads of foreign banks. I knew the people in various official agencies, like the Caribbean Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Organization of American States. Everyone of consequence in this region I knew. . . .(3)
These relationships were systematically turned to BCCI's use to generate cash needed to prop up its books. BCCI would obtain an important figure's agreement to give BCCI deposits from a country's Central Bank, exclusive handling of a country's use of U.S. commodity credits, preferential treatment on the processing of money coming in and out of the country where monetary controls were in place, the right to own a bank, secretly if necessary, in countries where foreign banks were not legal, or other questionable means of securing assets or profits. In return, BCCI would pay bribes to the figure, or otherwise give him other things he wanted in a simple quid-pro-quo. For example, BCCI would help an official move flight capital out of his country to a safe haven elsewhere, to launder funds skimmed by the official from an official bank account or official commercial transaction, create a foundation for a head of state to provide charitable services for his home village or province, take him on a shopping spree at a fancy London department store, or secure him sexual favors.
The result was that BCCI had relationships that ranged from the questionable, to the improper, to the fully corrupt with officials from countries all over the world, including but certainly not limited to Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, the Congo, Ghana, Guatemala, the Ivory Coast, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Typically, these relationships were handled personally and in secrecy by BCCI's top two officials — Abedi and Naqvi — with the occasional assistance of trusted lieutenants. Accordingly, a full accounting of these relationships may not be possible. Sakhia told the Subcommittee that he believed there was a list of BCCI's payments to political figures somewhere at BCCI's headquarters in London, held closely by Abedi and Naqvi, that contained all the names. When BCCI's headquarters were moved to Abu Dhabi in the spring of 1990, the list, if it still existed, was likely moved there with BCCI's other records:
There was a world wide list of people who were in the payoff of BCCI. The family of Indira Gandhi. President [Ershad] of Bangladesh. General Zia of Pakistan. Many of the leaders of Africa. I went to a World Bank meeting in Seoul, Korea and [BCCI official] Alauddin Shaikh was handing out cash in the hall to the staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria . . . Abedi’s philosophy was to appeal to every sector. If you were religious people he would help you pray. President Carter’s main thing was charity, so he gave Carter charity. [Pakistani] President Zia’s brother-in-law needed a job, he got a job. [Bangladeshi] President [Ershad]'s mistress needed a job, she got a job. You needed the admission of your son to a top college? Abedi would arrange it somehow.(4)
According to Sakhia, the form of the payoff varied with the needs of the customers, but the purpose was always the same — "to buy influence."(5)
Continued next page
(7094 VIEWS)
