Who could have imagined that during the 1970s and 1980s, a single bank would shake the financial centres of the world, from Wall Street in the United States to the City of London? Like the Roman Empire, BCCI was not built in a day. It took years of rapid expansion, ambitious leadership, and growing international influence to become one of the world’s largest private banks having an impressive $23 billion in assets worldwide and 380 offices in 72 countries, and a covert presence in others. Yet, when it finally collapsed, its downfall was swift and sent shockwaves throughout the global financial system.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was founded in 1972 by Pakistani banker Agha Hasan Abedi. Abedi began his career as an ordinary banker in India before migrating to Pakistan after Partition, but his vision extended far beyond that of any of his peers. He aspired to build an international financial institution that would serve developing countries overlooked by Western banks, bridging the gap that they could not fulfil. What started as an ambitious dream soon grew into a banking empire that operated across more than 70 countries. However, behind its remarkable success lay a complex web of fraud, weak regulation, and poor corporate governance that would ultimately lead to one of the greatest banking scandals in modern history.

Agha Hasan Abedi, commonly referred to as Agha Sahab by his friends and family, was born into an educated family in Lucknow on 14 May 1922. Growing up in an environment rich in literature and culture, he received a strong education and studied law at Lucknow University, eventually completing a Master’s degree in English Literature. Fate, however, had something else planned for him. Having developed an interest in finance during his college days, he began his career as a trainee officer at Habib Bank in 1946, eventually showing unprecedented growth in a short span of time. By 1959, he had built an impeccable reputation in the field of banking and then tried his own luck at founding his own bank. Through his connection with the Saigol family, he founded what is today known as United Bank Limited.

Abedi founded the bank in Luxembourg, a confidentiality haven. The initial funding consisted of $2.5 million obtained through a joint consortium led by the Bank of America and a further $500,000 provided by Shaykh Zayed Al Nahyan. Abedi successfully capitalised on the oil boom before many of his competitors. Abu Dhabi’s oil revenues, over which Shaykh Zayed Al Nahyan presided, totalled around $750 million annually during the early 1970s, a figure that surged to $10 billion by the end of the decade. BCCI proved to be the bridge........

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