Long Arm of The Law

The message from New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, still in pursuit of culprits in the Bank of Credit & Commerce International scandal, was broadly aimed. "No participant in the B.C.C.I. scheme, here or abroad, however influential, should expect to escape justice," declared Morgenthau. The D.A. then made good on his threat by delivering a grand jury indictment of billionaire Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz, CEO of the National Commercial Bank, the largest commercial bank in Saudi Arabia, and a financial adviser to the Saudi royal family, on charges of fraud. Other targets of a criminal grand jury led by Morgenthau include intimates of the royal families of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republic. Mahfouz, a principal shareholder in B.C.C.I., was charged with involvement in a billion-dollar scheme to defraud investors and deceive U.S. banking regulators. His bank is suspected of participating in B.C.C.I.'s financial manipulations that led to the disappearance of more than $10 billion. The sheik, however, claims that he actually lost vast amounts of money through B.C.C.I. and was thus himself a victim. Through a spokesman, he professed astonishment at the charges.