The Events That Led To the Collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce Essay

The Events That Led To the Collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hassan Abedi. Agha was a Pakistani financier who had previously set the United Bank of Pakistan in 1959. Before the United Bank was nationalized in 1974, he created another supranational banking entity, the BCCI. The bank was registered in Luxemburg with head offices in Karachi and London and Swaleh Naqvi became the banks chief. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates provided capital that was used to start BCCI. It was structured in a way that no country had overall regulatory supervision over it so as to allow potential growth and expansion of opportunities. It expanded rapidly in the 1970’s and by 1980; BCCI was reported to have assets of over $4 billion with over 150 branches in 46 countries. The BCCI scandal and criminality included fraud which involved millions of dollars from the customers, money laundering in different continents, support of terrorism, trafficking of arms and sale of nuclear technologies, management of prostitution, commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling and illegal immigration and illicit purchase of banks and real estate. BCCI was focused on serving Muslims and third world clients and the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973- 1974 led to huge deposits by Arab oil producers. However, its complex registration that involved Luxemburg registration, London headquarters, Middle East shareholders and worldwide operations made it impossible for outsiders to grapple what was going on within the bank. The structure was conceived by Abedi and managed by Naqvi with the specific purpose of evading regulation or any control by governments of the concerned nations. From its earliest days, BCCI was made up of multiplying layers of entities, related to one another through an impermeable series of holding companies, affiliates, subs idiaries, banks within banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. Activities such as corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits were fractured so that they can evade ordinary legal restrictions and movement of capital and goods.