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Financial General Bankshares

Financial General Bankshares was a bank holding company that became a target of acquisition by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.[^1]

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Financial General Bankshares was a bank holding company that became a target of acquisition by the BCCI.1

Acquisition Attempts and BCCI Involvement

In February 1978, BCCI orchestrated a hostile bid for Financial General Bankshares with the help of Bert Lance.1 Financial General, in turn, sued Lance, Agha Hasan Abedi, BCCI, and the Arab investors for making an illegal attempt to take over the bank.1 The Securities and Exchange Commission later filed suit against BCCI, Abedi, Lance, and others in connection with the purchase of Financial General Bankshares stock.1

Clark Clifford and Robert Altman were retained as counsel by Abedi, BCCI, and the front men to handle the Financial General suit and serve as principal liaisons with the shareholders and regulators.2 In August 1981, regulators approved the sale of Financial General to Middle Eastern investors connected with BCCI, based on Clifford's assurances that there would be no link between BCCI and Financial General Bankshares.1

BCCI secretly acquired control of Financial General Bankshares through nominees, including Kamal Adham, Faisal Saud al-Fulaij, and Abdullah Darwaish.3 These front men bought up nearly 20 percent of Financial General's stock, violating the law by failing to declare that they were acting as a group.3

The acquisition attempts led to lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny, highlighting BCCI's use of front men and illicit financial practices to gain control of American banking institutions.3 The Federal Reserve Board later fined BCCI $200 million for illegally acquiring control of three prominent U.S. banking institutions, including Financial General Bankshares.1

Sources

  1. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 12-14. ↩
  2. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 191. ↩
  3. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 183. ↩

Connected to

Organization
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a Pakistani-founded offshore bank that operated across 78 countries before its 1991 collapse exposed a decade-long conspiracy involving money laundering for drug cartels and intelligence agencies, illegal acquisition of U.S. banks, bribery, fraud, and arms trafficking, in what regulators called the largest bank fraud in history.
8 shared pages
viaRobert Altman · Kamal Adham · Clark Clifford · Roy P. M. Carlson · Bert Lance
Person
Clark Clifford
Clark Clifford (1906-1997) was a Washington attorney who served as Special Counsel to President Truman, co-authored the National Security Act of 1947, served as Secretary of Defense under Lyndon Johnson, and became the central American figure in the BCCI scandal after he and his partner Robert Altman personally vouched to banking regulators that BCCI would not secretly own First American Bank -- a representation that proved false.
6 shared pages
viaRobert Altman · Kamal Adham · Clark Clifford · Bert Lance · First American Bank

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