--- category: City created: 2026-09-23 location: Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan summary: Southern port city of Pakistan and capital of Sindh province, where Agha Hasan Abedi lived and BCCI kept its Pakistani branch, files and protocol department. tags: - City - Pakistan - BCCI - Sindh updated: 2026-09-23 --- Karachi is the southern port city of [Pakistan](/places/pakistan/) and the provincial capital of Sindh.[^1][^2] After partition in 1947 it was one of the growing cities, with Lahore, in which Muslim professionals from northern [India](/places/india/) settled and formed what the [Kerry-Brown Senate report](/events/bcci-kerry-brown-senate-report/) called "a clannish class of Muslim professionals who kept themselves apart from other Pakistanis." The report placed [Agha Hasan Abedi](/people/agha-hasan-abedi/), founder of [United Bank Limited](/organizations/united-bank-limited/) and the [Bank of Credit and Commerce International](/organizations/bank-of-credit-and-commerce-international/) (BCCI), within that class.[^3] BCCI's internal correspondence reached Abedi in Karachi in the 1970s, and he died there, at the Aga Khan Hospital, on August 5, 1995.[^4][^5] ### BCCI in Karachi BCCI's protocol department, which served the ruling family of [Abu Dhabi](/places/abu-dhabi/) and other Gulf visitors, was run by [Sani Ahmed](/people/sani-ahmed/) under Abedi's direction and was housed in Karachi in a separate building opposite Abedi's house. [Nazir Chinoy](/people/nazir-chinoy/), who arrived at BCCI Pakistan in 1978, told Senate staff that it then employed about 120 people, whose job was "to establish and further the rapport with the sheiks of and ruling families of Dubai and Abu Dhabi."[^3] Begum Asghari Rahim, who according to BCCI officials in Pakistan had recruited young women from villages for the Al-Nahyan family since Abedi's United Bank years, took 50 to 60 of them at a time to department stores in Lahore and Karachi to be outfitted, spending as much as 100,000 dollars at a time.[^6] On January 30, 1978, the BCCI officer [Abdus Sami](/people/abdus-sami/) wrote a memorandum in Washington to Abedi in Karachi on the "situation of acquisition of FGB," reporting that the BCCI group had bought 17.5 percent of [Financial General Bankshares](/organizations/financial-general-bankshares/) and had commitments or control over 23 to 24 percent, and that a meeting was needed between "our friend," [Bert Lance](/people/bert-lance/), and the Middendorf group. The [Federal Reserve](/organizations/federal-reserve-board/) later found the memorandum in BCCI files in Abu Dhabi, to which it had been moved from BCCI's files in Karachi. The Senate report cited it against the account of [Clark Clifford](/people/clark-clifford/) that he had not been involved in the takeover plan in January 1978.[^4][^7] On February 12, 1978, *[The Washington Post](/organizations/washington-post/)* reported: "In recent weeks, Lance was in Karachi, Pakistan, and sources say the trip was in connection with his dealings with Abedi." Lance, no longer in government, made the trip on an official [United States](/places/united-states/) diplomatic passport.[^8] In 1979, with Pakistan's commercial bank lending capped by World Bank credit ceilings, Abedi and [Swaleh Naqvi](/people/swaleh-naqvi/) arranged, according to Chinoy, for 50 million dollars to be placed with BCCI Pakistan through BCCI's Kuwaiti affiliate [KIFCO](/organizations/kuwait-international-finance-company/): "I have a feeling that KIFCO got the money from Caymans. In any case, Kifco placed the money with BCCI Karachi." BCCI reported the deposit to the central bank, which reported a 50 million dollar increase in Pakistan's dollar reserves to the World Bank. A New York indictment of July 29, 1992, put the total at 100 million dollars.[^9] The report also found that BCCI paid for years the personal expenses in [London](/places/london/) of Jam Sadiq Ali, the highest-ranking official of Sindh, who defended BCCI and Abedi after its collapse.[^9] The Chicago Mercantile Exchange found that on October 29, 1987, six receipts totaling 4.84 million dollars arrived in the account at [Capcom](/organizations/capcom/) Futures of Mohammed Zaheer, brother of Capcom Futures president M. Saghir, and that 4.80 million dollars was paid out the next day. An investigative firm retained by the exchange found that Zaheer "worked in a service station in Karachi, Pakistan" in a position "not very high"; Capcom described him to the exchange as "a self-employed auto dealer with a dealership in Karachi, Pakistan." Gerald Beyer, a vice president of the exchange, told the Senate subcommittee: "I was certain that it involved drug money and laundering of money. But there was no way we could prove that."[^10] ### Later Events In 1986 and 1987 the buyer [Arshad Pervez](/people/arshad-pervez/), seeking maraging steel for Pakistan's nuclear program, gave a research project of Karachi University's engineering program as one of its possible end uses.[^11] When [Zia ul-Haq](/people/zia-ul-haq/) was killed on August 17, 1988, the army was deployed at government installations in the capital and in Karachi.[^1] On the day [Benazir Bhutto](/people/benazir-bhutto/) returned to Pakistan in October 2007, a double suicide attack on her motorcade through Karachi killed about 130 people. After her assassination on December 27, 2007, four people died in protests in Karachi and more than 100 cars were burned.[^2] [^1]: Barnetson, Denholm. "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/ [^2]: "Benazir Bhutto killed in attack," BBC News, December 27, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm [^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI" (citing staff interviews with Nazir Chinoy, March 1992). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm [^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry and FGB and NBG Takeovers." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm [^5]: "Key Figure In International Bank Scandal Dies At 74," Associated Press, *The Spokesman-Review,* August 6, 1995. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/06/key-figure-in-international-bank-scandal-dies-at/ [^6]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality," section "Prostitution" (citing staff interview with Nazir Chinoy). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm [^7]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm [^8]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 16, "BCCI and Georgia Politicians" (citing John Berry, "Lance Tied to Bank's Takeover," *The Washington Post*, February 12, 1978, and Michael Sniffen, Associated Press, March 27, 1978). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/16ga.htm [^9]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 5, "BCCI's Relationship with Foreign Governments, Central Banks, and International Organizations," section "Pakistan" (citing staff interview with Nazir Chinoy, March 9, 1992, and Chinoy testimony, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 4, pp. 368-369). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm [^10]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 21, "Capcom." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/21capcom.htm [^11]: *United States v. Pervez*, 871 F.2d 310 (3d Cir. 1989), No. 88-1109, decided March 6, 1989. https://static.case.law/f2d/871/cases/0310-01.json