By Sharon Walsh Washington Post Staff Writer
How many suitcases does it take to carry $50 million
to the bank? Well, that depends on the size of the suitcases.
For Saudi investor and alleged intelligence official
Abdul Raouf Khalil, it was difficult to remember how many suitcases
and how much money he initially deposited in the now-defunct Bank of
Credit and Commerce International.
You see, Khalil is a very wealthy man - a point
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green made in a decision yesterday ordering
Khalil to pay the liquidators of BCCI $1.2 billion for fraud and racketeering
in a civil bank fraud case.
In trying to remember how much his initial deposit
to the bank was, he recalled in a deposition that the bank's representative
came to his house in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, three times and each time
took about 50 million Saudi riyal (about $17 million) in suitcases from
his strong room.
Asked how many suitcases, he replied: "I have
three different [sizes of] suitcase. . . . If this is the big one, you
know . . . maybe you can put 10 million [riyal]. . . maybe I can put
7 million. Maybe if it's smaller, I put 5 million in the suitcase."
So, he said, it must have taken about 30 suitcases ‹ 10 each time. But,
no worries, he was in no danger of running out of luggage. He had a
total of about 200 suitcases full of cash in his home, he said. He got
a deal on Samsonite.
BCCI is not normally thought of as a case of rip-roaring
courtroom hilarity. It's serious, serious, serious. The largest international
bank failure in history. Ruined reputations. Ruined depositors. A ruined
Washington financial institution - First American Bankshares.
Green has been hearing BCCI cases, criminal and
civil, for eight years now, and has turned her opinions into what could
be scripts for the stage, calling the principals "dramatis personae˛
and referring to one of the BCCI record keepers as "scrivener to
the fraud." Another defendant in the case was a "rogue extraordinaire."
Khalil receives no such rubric. But she does note
that Khalil was "one of the brightest students in his class"
and early on did well in the Saudi real estate market ‹ turning a 14
million riyal investment into 400 million. He also had the wisdom to
remove his $100 million plus interest from BCCI before it collapsed
in 1991.
Passionate about antiquities, Khalil put together
one of the world's largest collections of gold objets d'art ‹ about
60,000 pieces in a private museum he named for himself. He and his family
have given the museum to the poor, according to the decision.
While Khalil, who has a three-story waterfall in
his home in Jiddah, is clearly very rich, it isn't clear whether he'll
pay the $1.2 billion judgment, which was reached by tripling the damages
under the anti-racketeering law. His U.S. attorney, James Linn, was
out of the office yesterday and did not respond to messages seeking
comment.
The liquidators of BCCI, who represent the depositors
who lost money, have paid more than $4 billion back to depositors, according
to Eric Lewis, a Washington attorney and one of the liquidators. "We
will do everything we can to collect," said Lewis. "We think
the Saudi government will be reluctant to let one of their most prominent
citizens flout a U.S. judgment."
As one of BCCI's biggest depositors and a straw
shareholder who helped cover up the identity of the bank's real shareholders,
Khalil was the recipient of what he called "VIP service.˛
For example, when Khalil bought homes in various
countries, BCCI would pick up certain decorating costs, travel and living
expenses - altogether, more than $15 million. He mostly paid for the
homes - with names like Potato Patch in Vail, Colo., Seadunes in New
Smyrna Beach, Fla., and Sunningdale in Berkshire, England - himself.
At his home in London, a BCCI operative tended to
the decorating. But Khalil, said Green, had an "affinity for things
of exquisite beauty and expense" and was aghast at the modest furnishings.
So he simply went to Harrods and other London stores and redecorated.
In cash and other services, he received about $30
million from BCCI for the use of his name as a sham shareholder, according
to the decision. In addition, he "borrowed" more than $236
million to start a London brokerage firm called Capcom. He never repaid
that loan. He received $47 million in payments from BCCI to various
businesses he owned and BCCI lost $62 million in copper and silver trading
involving accounts in Khalil's name.
But, all in all, Khalil was not that impressed
with the Pakistani owners of BCCI. In his words, they were doing "monkey
business," but, being from a poor country, they weren't quite sure
how to do it.
"In our banks . . . you see . . . it's
always like that, always."
"Always what?" asked a lawyer.
"Always they cheat."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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