Amjad Awan

Amjad Awan was a manager of BCCI Panama and later the bank's marketing manager for Latin America and the Caribbean.¹ He gained notoriety as Manuel Noriega's personal banker, handling his accounts and facilitating illicit financial transactions.²

Role in BCCI's Operations

Awan was deeply involved in BCCI's efforts to hide illicit financial transactions and manage accounts for high-net-worth criminal clients.³ He facilitated the movement of money for drug cartels and maintained a close relationship with Noriega, who was looting his own country.⁴ Awan also told investigators that BCCI secretly owned and controlled First American Bank and other United States banks.⁵

In October 1988, Awan was arrested by American Customs agents in Tampa, Florida, as part of a sting operation targeting money laundering and narcotics trafficking.⁶ He was convicted of money laundering but never testified at his trial.⁷ Despite his conviction, Awan's testimony and cooperation with investigators were crucial in revealing the extent of BCCI's criminal enterprise.

Connections and Legal Proceedings

Awan's connections extended to high-level figures within BCCI and beyond. He was in contact with Swaleh Naqvi, BCCI's chief operating officer, and was advised by Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, BCCI's chief American counsel, to shred documents and leave the United States.⁸

His case was part of a larger investigation into BCCI's money laundering activities, which eventually led to the bank pleading guilty in Tampa in 1990.⁹

Operation C-Chase

Awan and Akbar Bilgrami were officers of BCCI's Latin American and Caribbean regional office on Brickell Avenue in Miami, working in its "External Marketplace" program for clients depositing money outside their home countries. They were introduced to "Robert Musella," the undercover Customs agent Robert Mazur, on January 11, 1988. Told on January 26 that Musella's clients were major Colombian drug dealers, Awan said: "I'm not concerned... it's not my business about who your customers are... we will provide you all security, all sorts of security and anonymity... I don't want to know." On June 30, 1988, the two told Mazur that they planned to leave BCCI for Capcom.¹⁰ In a recorded meeting at the Grand Bay Hotel in Miami on September 9, 1988, Awan told Mazur that he had been subpoenaed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the Noriega accounts and that Robert Altman had advised the bank to transfer him to Paris; an IRS agent on the case, David Burris, recorded in an affidavit that "Awan said that BCCI has bought and controls First American Bank and National Bank of Georgia through private individuals."¹¹

He was arrested on October 8, 1988, at a staged wedding party for Mazur at the Innisbrook Resort in Tarpon Springs. After a trial from January 26 to July 29, 1990, he was convicted of money laundering, and on November 30, 1990, he was sentenced to 144 months, twelve years, with three years of supervised release and a fine of 100,000 dollars. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed his conviction on July 27, 1992; his counsel on appeal was John P. Hume of Washington, and the prosecutors were the Assistant United States Attorneys Mark Jackowski, Michael L. Rubinstein and Karla Spaulding.¹⁰

Noriega

The Senate report put Noriega's money at BCCI at some 23 million dollars, managed from its London branches, and recorded that the bank sent him a 25,000 dollar Persian carpet "hand delivered with Abedi's regards" by Alauddin Sheikh. Awan told the Senate investigator Jack Blum that he would be killed if the details of the limited information he had given the Senate were revealed.¹²