home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT1644>
- <title>
- July 20, 1992: B.C.C.I. Hits Home
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- July 20, 1992 Olympic Special
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 17
- WORLD
- B.C.C.I. Hits Home
- </hdr><body>
- <p>A Saudi bank roils the markets after its top officer is indicted
- </p>
- <p> All last year Americans heard of the labyrinthine lawlessness
- of the Pakistani Bank of Credit & Commerce International. But
- unlike depositors shut out in places like Britain and Hong
- Kong, they felt no real impact. That changed after a New York
- grand jury indicted Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz, head of Saudi
- Arabia's National Commercial Bank, for fraud in connection with
- the scandal. Last week the Federal Reserve sought a $170 million
- fine from Mahfouz -- the largest ever from an individual -- for
- his alleged role in illegally buying a controlling interest in
- Washington's First American Bankshares from B.C.C.I., and the
- Comptroller of the Currency ordered the close of N.C.B.'s New
- York branch.
- </p>
- <p> Earlier in the week Mahfouz resigned his post "to combat
- these false charges," and the same day silver plunged on
- European exchanges as his bank, Saudi Arabia's largest, dumped
- gargantuan amounts of the metal. The silver shock spilled into
- oil stocks, which helped fuel a 44-point slide in the Dow-Jones
- average on the New York Stock Exchange. Although silver and
- stocks recovered, the turmoil in those markets was the first
- close-to-home repercussion of the B.C.C.I. scandal in the U.S.
- It may not be the last.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-