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Ghanim Faris Al Mazrui
Ghanim al-Mazrui
Ghanim al Mazrui
H.E.G.F. Mazrui
Business & Finance
Person
BCCI
AbuDhabi
CIA
PrivateDepartment
Secretary general of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and chairman of Sheikh Zayed's Private Department who sat on BCCI's board from 1981 and later became its chairman.
type with role start fn
head_of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority secretary general 1976 1
type with role start fn
head_of Private Department of Sheikh Zayed chairman or acting chairman 1982 1
type with role start fn
head_of Shareholders Working Group chairman 1991 1
type with role start end fn
director_of Bank of Credit and Commerce International Abu Dhabi Investment Authority representative on the board from 1981; later chairman 1981 1991 1
type with role start end fn
director_of Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty Bank director 1981 1983 7
type with role start end fn
director_of Tetra Finance director 1981 1983 7
type with role start fn
employed_by Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan financial adviser and manager; chairman of the Private Department 1982 1
2026-10-15

Ghanim Faris al-Mazrui was secretary general of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) from 1976 and chairman or acting chairman of the Private Department of Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan from 1982. He sat on the board of Bank of Credit and Commerce International from 1981 as ADIA's representative and later became its chairman.12 Beaty wrote that Sami Masri told him Mazrui was the director general of the Private Department, director of ADIA and a longtime BCCI director who "effectively ran Abu Dhabi" and was, next to Sheikh Zayed, "probably the most influential person in the United Arab Emirates."3 The BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report gives his name as Ghanim Faris Al Mazrui, and Price Waterhouse's reports rendered it as "H.E.G.F. Mazrui."

Offices

The Senate report says that Mazrui had "served Sheikh Zayed as a financial advisor and manager" for more than fifteen years as of late 1992.1 It lists his posts as secretary general of ADIA "from 1976 to the present," as "chairman or acting chairman" of the Private Department "from 1982 to the present," and, from July 1991, as chairman of a "Shareholders Working Group," which Abu Dhabi described as "an informal committee appointed to oversee and coordinate the Majority Shareholders' response to the closure of BCCI."1 The report describes the Private Department as the body that "handles the principal personal investments of the ruler of Abu Dhabi."1

Darweish and the Private Department

Abdullah Darweish chaired the Private Department from 1977 to December 1981 and served as liaison to Agha Hasan Abedi and BCCI. On December 8, 1981, Darweish was arrested and charged with defrauding the ruling family. The report says his role as chief financial adviser was replaced by Mazrui "as head of a committee," and that the investment funds moved "to the control of Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan's long-time aide, Al Mazrui, who replaced Darweish, and to BCCI."4 In the same period Sheikh Zayed directed ADIA to acquire a 10 percent stake in BCCI from ICIC, BCCI's Cayman affiliate, which had bought back the shares of the departing Bank of America, and placed the chairman of his private department on BCCI's board.4

In 1982 Mazrui, as the "present chairman of the Department of Private Affairs of Sheikh Zayed," testified in civil litigation that Abedi "could even be viewed as an official of the Abu Dhabi government," because of his position on the committee overseeing the ruling family's wealth.5

A Federal Reserve enforcement release of July 29, 1991 reproduced BCCI's ownership tables for 1989, which list the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority among the shareholders. A note to the tables states that ADIA sold 1,273 shares acquired in the July 1989 rights offering to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan on July 18, 1989.6

Board seats and the Hong Kong banks

From 1981 Mazrui sat on BCCI's board in his capacity as secretary general of ADIA, which held 10 percent of the bank's shares.1 In the same year he joined the boards of two Hong Kong institutions, the Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty Bank and Tetra Finance, alongside Yassin Hassan, who had been Kamal Adham's original contact for the Financial General Bankshares takeover. Both banks collapsed about two years later, with losses to depositors of several hundred million dollars.7

The report's appendix lists the Hong Kong banks among matters requiring inquiry. It cites "several important BCCI figures, including Ghanim Al Mazrui, and a close associate of then Central Intelligence Agency director William J. Casey," and asks "whether the two Hong Kong institutions were used for domestic or foreign intelligence operations."8

Price Waterhouse and April 1990

Abu Dhabi's designated witness, Ahmed Al Sayegh, told John Kerry that Mazrui "first learned of BCCI's problems, and its involvement in false or deceitful accounting practices, in April, 1990, from Price Waterhouse, along with other members of BCCI's board of directors."9 On April 25, 1990, Price Waterhouse wrote to the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Finance Department: "Your representative, HE G Al Mazrui, has confirmed to use that you are fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the uncertainties and prepared to provide the necessary financial support in the event that losses arise from realisation of these loans."10

Price Waterhouse's section 41 report to the Bank of England in June 1991 states that "the extent to which the major shareholders and in particular their board representative H.E.G.F. Mazrui was aware of the matters discussed in this report cannot be established." The same report says that Mazrui and the government were "briefed fully on all the problems in April, 1990," and that until October 1990 he had contended that loans later "proven to be totally fictitious" were recoverable.11 Price Waterhouse told the Bank of England that his accounts at ICIC showed receipts from no-risk transactions in BCCI shares in 1986 and earlier, and that he had confirmed a fictitious BCCI loan to the Crown Prince, Sheikh Khalifa. Mazrui told the auditors that "his signature must have been forged," a contention the auditors rejected.12

The report's executive summary says Mazrui "received unorthodox financial benefits from BCCI in no-risk stock deals," and that he "remains today in place at the apex of Abu Dhabi's committee designated to respond to BCCI's collapse."13 The chapter on Abu Dhabi says that Mazrui "has neither been fired, nor resigned," and that "more than two years later, Al Mazrui remains in place as the head of Abu Dhabi's working group to deal with BCCI-related problems."13

The 1992 subcommittee hearing

In the spring of 1992 the subcommittee asked that Mazrui appear as Abu Dhabi's representative on BCCI's board. Abu Dhabi instead produced Al Sayegh, whose written answers reached the subcommittee five weeks after his testimony through Abu Dhabi's lawyers at Patton, Boggs & Blow. The report describes Al Sayegh as a member of the steering committee "headed by Al Mazrui, responsible for handling Abu Dhabi's response to BCCI's closure."14 Asked whether Mazrui had received financial benefits from purchases of BCCI shares, Al Sayegh replied: "I am not privy to the details of Mr. Mazrui's own private affairs." The report notes that Mazrui had confessed to receiving these benefits, according to the Price Waterhouse section 41 report, to members of the ruling family in April 1990.15

Restructuring and First American

Beaty and Gwynne wrote that the Abu Dhabi leadership was most visibly angry at the seizure of BCCI on July 5, 1991, which coincided with a BCCI board meeting in Luxembourg on the reorganization and new capital from Sheikh Zayed, and that the deal "was to have been signed a mere ten days later." They name Zayed and "his chief lieutenant, the secretary general of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Ghanim al-Mazrui."16 The Senate report says that by the late spring of 1991 U.S. and U.K. regulators insisted on the removal of Zafar Iqbal as head of BCCI. Mazrui, who had worked closely with Iqbal for many years, "resisted, temporarily paralyzing the restructuring plan" that the regulators, Abu Dhabi and BCCI had agreed.17

The report says that the Federal Reserve's need to secure the cooperation of Abu Dhabi's government and royal family arose from the Abu Dhabi shareholders "providing some $190 million to prop up First American Bank and prevent an embarrassing collapse."18

Closure and the Bingham inquiry

The Bank of England closed BCCI in July 1991 after receiving Price Waterhouse's report under section 41 of the Banking Act 1987.19 Following the closure, the Chancellor and the Governor appointed Sir Thomas Bingham to inquire into the Bank's supervision. The Bank's annual report for 1992 to 1993 states that the Bingham Report was published on October 22, 1992, that the inquiry "was held in private to avoid any prejudice to criminal proceedings," and that Bingham considered the July 1991 closure "an appropriate course of action in the circumstances, although it was not the only possible option."19

Lawyers for Abu Dhabi

Clark Clifford and Robert Altman had signed powers of attorney, spanning more than a decade, for Sheikh Zayed personally, for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, for at least one of Sheikh Zayed's sons, and for Abdullah Darweish as guardian of another son.20 The report says that from 1978 through 1990 Abu Dhabi's interests in Financial General Bankshares and in CCAH and First American were represented by Clifford, Altman and the firm of Clifford & Warnke. Abu Dhabi's other interests in the United States were represented by Patton, Boggs & Blow.21

Access to Zayed

Beaty wrote that no one saw Zayed without Mazrui's approval, and quoted a contact at the UAE embassy in Washington, Sandy Martin, saying "only Ghanim al-Mazrui can approve that." Word came from Abu Dhabi that Mazrui "was not prepared to talk to Time magazine at this time." Beaty wrote that the Manhattan prosecutor John Moscow thought whether Sheikh Zayed or Mazrui, "his number-one man," knew about the bank's criminal activity was "one of the keys." Beaty wrote that if Zayed was being kept in ignorance, it was as likely that Mazrui was withholding information.22

The 1994 Abu Dhabi court

On June 14, 1994, an Abu Dhabi court sentenced twelve former BCCI executives to a combined 56 years in prison. Agha Hasan Abedi received six years in absentia. Swaleh Naqvi, who had been handed to U.S. officials in May, received, in the June report, "four sentences totaling 11 years for the nine counts he faced." Zafar Iqbal and Hasan Mahmood Kazmi received six years each. One defendant was acquitted. The court awarded the former majority shareholders civil damages of more than $9.13 billion on claims of $10.0342 billion. The suits were brought by the Private Department of the United Arab Emirates president, ADIA and the Abu Dhabi Finance Department, and the court awarded the Private Department $6.56 billion, ADIA $1.347 billion and the Finance Department $1.223 billion.23 A UPI report of October 20, 1994 gave Naqvi's June sentence from the Abu Dhabi court as 14 years.24

On January 10, 1994, Khalid bin Mahfouz issued a writ in London against ADIA and Mazrui, seeking recognition that they were liable to pay him up to $10.5 billion for any award made against him in the Touche Ross case.25

Settlement with the liquidators

In November 1994 the main creditors agreed to accept $1,800 million in compensation from Abu Dhabi.26 The Middle East Economic Digest reported that the majority shareholders were to pay "a fixed $1,800 million" in place of an earlier range of $1,200 million to $2,200 million that would have fallen as liquidation recoveries rose, and that a spokesman for the liquidator, Touche Ross, said the creditors' committees had given the agreement "overwhelming support."27 An appeal by former BCCI employees delayed Luxembourg's approval into 1995 and 1996.28 The Luxembourg court approved the plan on January 31, 1995, after the London and Cayman Islands courts.29 On May 14, 1996, after the deadline for appeals passed, Abu Dhabi paid $1.55 billion to the liquidators, with a further $250 million held in escrow.30 On December 10, 1996, creditors received their first repayments: $1,350 million from $2,650 million set aside. The same report stated that Abu Dhabi had paid $1,550 million under a settlement agreed with the liquidators, with $250 million still due. A spokesman for the liquidators, Deloitte & Touche, gave those figures.31

Namesakes

Suhail al-Mazrouei resigned in November 1994 as secretary general of the Supreme Petroleum Council and general manager of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. 32 Beaty wrote that Masri described Khalfan al-Mazrui, head of the Karachi office of the Private Department, as "the brother, if he understood the complicated lineage being described, of Ghanim al-Mazrui."33

Footnotes

  1. Kerry, John, and Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. S. Prt. 102-140. December 1992. Chapter 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Shareholders," section "Ghanim Al Mazrui" and note 33. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  2. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, cast of characters. ↩︎

  3. Beaty and Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank (1993), p. 68. ↩︎

  4. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, section "Darweish's Arrest and BCCI's Role in Abu Dhabi in 1980," including note 31 (indictment of Darweish by the Attorney General of Abu Dhabi, dated in the note December 8, 1991; the text dates the arrest December 8, 1981). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  5. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 10 (deposition, Lasidi v. Financiera Avenida, New York Supreme Court, County of New York, 1982), cited in the text of the "Darweish's Arrest" section. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  6. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, press release, "formal enforcement proceeding against BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A.," July 29, 1991, with the attached BCCI shareholder tables for 1989 and note 1 to the rights-offering table. https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/files/19910729.pdf ↩︎

  7. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 34 (Price Waterhouse audit reports, 1983, Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty and Tetra Finance (HK)). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  8. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), Appendix, item 16. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/24appendic.htm ↩︎

  9. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 35 (answers of Ahmed Al Sayegh to Questions 31 and 35 of Senator Kerry, July 8, 1992, reprinted in S. Hrg. 102-350 Pt. 5). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  10. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 39 (letter from Price Waterhouse, April 25, 1990, reprinted in S. Hrg. 102-350 Pt. 1 p. 481). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  11. Price Waterhouse, Section 41 Report to the Bank of England, June 1991, as quoted in Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 36. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  12. Price Waterhouse, Section 41 Report to the Bank of England, June 1991, as summarized in Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 37. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  13. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), executive summary, https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/01exec.htm; and ch. 14, section "Ghanim Al Mazrui" and "Abu Dhabi's Commitments in April-May, 1990." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  14. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, text following note 15 and note 16 (Al Sayegh's sworn answers, July 8, 1992, S. Hrg. 102-350 Pt. 5). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  15. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 81 (answer of Al Sayegh to Question 35, S. Hrg. 102-350 Pt. 5). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  16. Beaty and Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank (1993), p. 99. ↩︎

  17. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, section "Zafar Iqbal" and note 52 (staff interview, August 26, 1992). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  18. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 12, "Federal Reserve" section. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/12reg.htm ↩︎

  19. Bank of England, Banking Act Report 1992-93, p. 18, "The Bingham Report." https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/banking-act-report/1992-1993.pdf ↩︎

  20. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, note 64 (documents on Clifford and Altman's representation of Abu Dhabi, 1978 through 1990, S. Hrg. 102-350 Pt. 4), and text on powers of attorney. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  21. Kerry and Brown, The BCCI Affair (1992), ch. 14, section "Abu Dhabi's Lawyers and PR Firms." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

  22. Beaty and Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank (1993), pp. 71, 73, 74, 86. ↩︎

  23. United Press International, "UAE jails and fines BCCI executives," Abu Dhabi, June 14, 1994. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/06/14/UAE-jails-and-fines-BCCI-executives/7650771566400/ ↩︎

  24. United Press International, "Ex-BCCI chief faces jail in UAE," October 20, 1994. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/20/Ex-BCCI-chief-faces-jail-in-UAE/7767782625600/ ↩︎

  25. Middle East Economic Survey, Vol. XXXVII No. 16, January 17, 1994, "Mahfouz Sues ADIA and Mr. Ghanim al-Mazrui." https://archives.mees.com/issues/905/articles/34036 ↩︎

  26. MEED, "BCCI creditors agree to $1,800 million compensation pay-out from Abu Dhabi," November 4, 1994. https://www.meed.com/bcci-creditors-agree-to-1800-million-compensation-pay-out-from-abu-dhabi/ ↩︎

  27. MEED, "BCCI settlement moves to a climax as liquidation package firms up," December 2, 1994. https://www.meed.com/bcci-settlement-moves-to-a-climax-as-liquidation-package-firms-up/ ↩︎

  28. MEED, "BCCI creditors move closer to compensation," November 17, 1995. https://www.meed.com/bcci-creditors-move-closer-to-compensation/ ↩︎

  29. Middle East Economic Survey, Vol. XXXVIII No. 19, February 6, 1995, "Luxembourg Court Approves BCCI Settlement; Settlement With Mahfouz/NCB Imminent." https://archives.mees.com/issues/856/articles/32613 ↩︎

  30. Middle East Economic Survey, Vol. XXXIX No. 34, May 20, 1996, "Abu Dhabi Pays $1.55Bn To Liquidators Of BCCI." https://archives.mees.com/issues/806/articles/31172 ↩︎

  31. MEED, "BCCI creditors finally get their first pay out," December 20, 1996. https://www.meed.com/bcci-creditors-finally-get-their-first-pay-out/ ↩︎

  32. Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), Vol. XXXVIII No. 9, November 28, 1994, "Bin Yusuf Succeeds Mazrui In Top Abu Dhabi Posts At SPC and ADNOC." https://archives.mees.com/issues/846/articles/32300 ↩︎

  33. Beaty and Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank (1993), p. 68 (Khalfan al-Mazrui). ↩︎