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Bin Laden linked to BCCI accounts;
1991 fraud scandal cost depositors millions
Posted by : Associated Press, september 27, 2001
Bin Laden linked to BCCIBCCI accounts
1991 fraud scandal cost depositors millions
Investigators have learned that Osama bin Laden was among those with
accounts in a bank shut down in 1991 in one of the world's biggest banking
scandals, Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday.
The BCCI Bank of Credit and Commerce International was closed after bank
regulators around the globe linked it to fraud, theft, secret weapons deals,
terrorist financing and drug-money laundering.
Investigators didn't know it at the time, but it turns out bin Laden had
accounts at BCCI, said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who led an
investigation into the Third World bank.
Kerry commented on BCCI¹s link to bin Laden at a Senate Banking Committee
hearing on money laundering legislation.
Arab terrorist Abu Nidal and Colombian cocaine cartels also were among the
bank's 1.3 million customers. Depositors lost millions of dollars when
authorities seized BCCI¹s assets.
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