"We were representing a joint venture and chasing a sale of military equipment to the Belgian government. We had gone pretty far down the line when suddenly B.C.C.I. showed up, representing the Italians. I was staying at the Hilton in Brussels, and I got a phone call from a B.C.C.I. guy asking me to come down to the lobby. When I go down, there's a B.C.C.I. guy, Pakistani, and next to him is this 220-lb. French guy named Andre -- the kind of guy who stuffs people in car trunks. They have business cards with a B.C.C.I. logo. So Andre says, 'You're getting out of this thing. This is our deal.' Then the other B.C.C.I. guy says, 'You're out, and go and tell your client you're out.' They scared the hell out of me. B.C.C.I. had two functions, as bagmen and as thugs. They pushed the competition out."
Bagmen, thugs, arms deals and B.C.C.I. Common ingredients, it turns out, in the murky world of international arms sales, where experiences like that of the American dealer quoted above are common fare. While prosecutors and auditors from governments and regulatory bodies continue their scramble to unravel the role of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International in the world's first truly global financial scandal, TIME has learned that what looked like a bank was in fact a multipurpose, multinational enterprise. In the past two decades, the organization created by Pakistani financier Agha Hasan Abedi has become, among other things, a powerful player in the netherworld of international arms. Using the clandestine routes and alliances originally created for money laundering, B.C.C.I. has brokered, financed and, in some instances, initiated transactions that have often upset the uneasy technomilitary balance sought by the U.S. and other major powers engaging in government-to-government sales.
Many of the B.C.C.I.-brokered arms deals are perfectly legal, involving shipments of conventional weapons -- rocket launchers, tanks and even sophisticated jet fighters such as the Mirage 2000. But many more are not. Moreover, government sources, former B.C.C.I. bankers, and arms merchants doing business through B.C.C.I. have described the bank's more sinister role in providing nuclear-weapons technology for Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Libya -- nations widely believed to be pursuing development of the so-called Islamic bomb to counter the nuclear force they assume Israel possesses. According to these sources, B.C.C.I. has also been busy providing Pakistan and other customers throughout the Middle East with the capacity to deliver such weapons.