The Outlaw Bank

Two journalists with Time magazine provide a behind-the-scenes look at the BCCI scandal, describing a complex web of intrigue, kickbacks, corruption, and coverup and their cloak-and-dagger investigation into the case. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.

An unconventional but thorough audit of the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International, by a pair of Time correspondents whose coverage of the stateless institution's scandalous collapse earned them a slew of journalism awards. Beaty and Gwynne (Selling Money, 1986) offer a four-part rundown on BCCI, the financial establishment of choice for arms dealers, drug traffickers, intelligence operatives, terrorists, Third World strongmen, and other scofflaws. The authors first recount how confidential sources tipped them on the biggest story of their professional lives. They then provide a concise, third- person briefing on the Arab-owned, Pakistani-run bank's origins and off-the-books operating procedures. Chartered in backwater venues like the Cayman Islands to evade oversight by regulatory authorities, BCCI (founded in 1972) resorted to money laundering, Ponzi schemes, secret ledgers, tax evasion, and allied misdeeds in catering to its criminal clientele. An accounting commissioned by the Bank of England finally exposed the extent of BCCI's deficits and offenses, impelling the bank's closing. Resuming the narrative as it unfolded from their points of view, the authors cover how they learned that BCCI was something larger and more sinister than a transnational depository institution. In conclusion, they address the failure of governments everywhere to clamp down on BCCI despite abundant evidence of its corruption. Throughout, Beaty and Gwynne make clear that the bank's capacity to suborn or use pillars of the political community played a crucial role in its success. The ranks of those tarnished include the prominent likes of Lord Callaghan, Jimmy Carter, Clark Clifford, and Bert Lance, while the much shorter list of good guys features Jack Blum (a former Senate investigator) and Gotham's D.A., Robert Morgenthau. The ringside format takes some getting used to, but it ultimately affords as vividly clear an explanation of the BCCI conspiracy as we're apt to get anytime soon. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The latest chronicle of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) is "about the biggest bank fraud in the history of the world," write the authors, reporters for Time magazine. They have tracked the story much as Woodward and Bernstein sniffed out Watergate. While there is some overlap between this and two previous BCCI books (James Adams's A Full Service Bank , LJ 3/1/92, and Mark Potts's Dirty Money , LJ 5/1/92), this one gives a far-ranging overview of BCCI's origins, how it became a financial powerhouse, and how it fell apart. Some of the new revelations indicate a major cover-up involving the U.S. government; there is a great deal of cloak-and-dagger activity involving late-night meetings and anonymous high-level government sources (one named Condor, who is reminiscent of Deep Throat during Watergate). Given the scope of this scandal and the ongoing investigations, more books on BCCI are sure to be written, but this is probably the best now available for general readers on the subject. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/92.
- Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.