National Bank of Oman

The National Bank of Oman (NBO) was the first incorporated bank in Oman, established in 1973. In 1987 the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) bought the stake of Bank of America, and the Kerry-Brown Senate report listed the bank among the "parallel banks" through which BCCI conducted its financial manipulations.¹²

Founding and Ownership

The National Bank of Oman JSC was registered under number 1003704 with an initial capital of 500,000 Omani rials and opened with two branches in 1973. Its initial principal shareholders were W.J. Towell & Co., with 51 percent, and Bank of America, with 39 percent. "In 1987, Bank of Credit and Commerce International (Luxembourg) Holdings SA (BCCI) acquired Bank of America's 39 per cent stake." When BCCI's operations were suspended in 1991, the Omani government recapitalised the bank. The Suhail Bahwan Group took a 35 percent holding through a private issue of shares in 2003, and in 2005 it and other minority holders sold part of their holdings to the Commercial Bank of Qatar, which held 34.9 percent of the issued capital. The bank's shares are listed on the Muscat Securities Market, and it was the only Omani bank licensed to operate in Dubai.¹ The Senate report put BCCI's share at 29 percent, quoting British journalists.³

Bank of America had also supplied BCCI's founding capital. According to the Senate report, Agha Hasan Abedi obtained 2.5 million dollars for the new bank from Bank of America, supplemented by 500,000 dollars from Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi.²

Parallel Bank

The Senate report described BCCI's two-part corporate structure in Luxembourg and Grand Cayman as "intentionally further complicated by the establishment of a series of additional entities, used as 'parallel banks' by BCCI as needed for financial manipulations." These included the Kuwait International Finance Company (KIFCO), the Geneva bank Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP), "the National Bank of Oman, again with BCCI formally holding only a minority interest," a wholly owned finance subsidiary, Credit & Finance Corporation Ltd., and the ICIC entities in Grand Cayman. Where BCCI's official interest was a minority, "its apparent lack of control was the consequence of local regulations prohibiting a foreign bank from owning a majority share. Each time, BCCI found ways to evade the regulations through the use of front-men or nominees." In its chapter on BCCI's criminality the report again named "ICIC in the Grand Caymans, the Banque de Commerce et Placements in Geneva, the National Bank of Oman, and the Kuwaiti Investment Finance Corporation (KIFCO)" as affiliated entities BCCI used as its losses grew.²⁴

Akbar and Capcom

Z. A. Akbar, a protege of BCCI's chief executive Swaleh Naqvi, was "plucked from his job at National Bank of Oman in 1981 to manage BCCI's investments from its headquarters in London," and by 1984 was managing over 5.5 billion dollars at BCCI's treasury. When Capcom opened Capcom Futures in the United States in late 1984, "Mohammed Saghir, born in the same town in India as Abedi, and a former cohort of Akbar's at the National Bank of Oman, was brought in to run the Chicago operations." The Senate report also recorded that when Global Chemical and Maintenance Systems, a company owned by A. R. Khalil and managed by one Powell, opened an office in Oman in 1976, Powell "met Z.A. Akbar who was then working at the National Bank of Oman, which was partially owned by BCCI."⁵

Oman and Afghanistan

In its chapter on BCCI and intelligence, where it also called the bank "the Bank of Oman," the Senate report stated that "BCCI may have been moving money through the National Bank of Oman to fund the war in Afghanistan." It quoted British journalists who cited The Wall Street Journal of October 23, 1991, and "a member of the late General Zia's cabinet" as saying, "It was Arab money that was pouring through BCCI," and who wrote: "The Bank which carried the money on from Oman to Pakistan and into Afghanistan was National Bank of Oman, where BCCI owned 29%."³

The same chapter recorded dealings between the bank and Bruce Rappaport: "The National Bank of Oman and its CEO, Case Zawawi, also did business with Bruce Rappaport." Jerry Townsend, president of Colonial Shipping in Atlanta, who said he had worked as a Soviet analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and was employed by Rappaport from 1981 to 1990, told the subcommittee that Rappaport had business relations in Oman with Zawawi at the bank, and that Rappaport once flew Zubin Mehta and the London Philharmonic to Oman to entertain the Sultan. The report cited a 1985 New York Times article on a Pasadena company, Tetra Tech, "operated by a former CIA agent," which "helps manage several key Omani government agencies," and listed BCCI loans outstanding on March 3, 1991, to Omani borrowers, among them 8 million dollars to Oman Aviation Service, 13 million to Oman Flour Mills, 13 million to the Oman Development Bank, 16 million to Oman Building and Contracting Services, and 14 million to the Sultanate of Oman.³