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Abdullah Taha Bakhsh
Last Updated: June 06, 2008

As Saudi tycoon Abdullah Taha Bakhsh grew his fortune over the past three decades, he built partnerships with the Bush oil dynasty in Texas, key figures in the scandalous collapse of the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), and two Saudi businessmen who have been accused of links to Al Qaeda.

One of Bakhsh’s companies financed a Florida aircraft operation intercepted (though no one arrested), after a huge cocaine smuggling flight. Another of his financial interests is Investcorp, a Bahraini company with major US holdings founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yamani, whose name appears on a seized list Al Qaeda financiers.

Two others with Bush family connections also hold shares of an Investcorp subsidiary: Herbert “Pug Winokur, whose accounting schemes propped up both Enron and George W. Bush’s oil company Harken Energy; and Purnendu Chatterjee, who runs investment fund Winston Partners with the president’s brother Marvin Bush.

In the 1980s, Bakhsh made several financial connections in the U.S. During that decade, Bakhsh had a controlling interest in the Bin Laden family-run Banque Al Saoudi. One of his partners was Saudi banking magnate Khalid bin Mahfouz. Mahfouz was an initial funder for the Muwafaq (“Blessed Relief”) Foundation, which the Treasury Department described in late 2001 as an Al Qaeda front.

Mahfouz paid a $225 million settlement for his role in BCCI, known as the largest bank fraud in world history, that laundered money for CIA , Iran-Contra, drug smugglers and terror groups. (Bakhsh is also a former business partner of Ghaith Pharoan, a fugitive tied to the crimes and collapse of BCCI.

In the early 1970s, Mahfouz’s U.S. financial dealings—as well as those of Salem Bin Laden—were turned over to a 26 year old Texan named James Bath, George W. Bush’s buddy in the Texas Air National Guard. (Bakhsh himself held this role for Bin Laden from 1976 to 1982.)

In 1988, Bakhsh Banque Al Saoudi collapsed, and a complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court accused Bakhsh of looting it before it skidded toward insolvency. The bank eventually reorganized as Banque Francaise pour l’Orient, and arranged financing for Net Command Tech, a previously delisted public company fronted by Florida father and son sleaze-team Glenn and Brent Kovar.

Publicly boasting of their CIA involvement, the Kovars also ran Skyway Communications Holding Corp for registered beneficial owner Michael Farkas, whose companies were named in a $300 million securities fraud conviction of global arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Skyway planes used hangars at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida, where two of the 911 hijackers, one of them Mohammed Atta, were enrolled in flight training.

A plane registered to Skyway was seized in Mexico after a flight from Venezuela with 5 tons of cocaine on board. No one was arrested.

Through a web of Skyway entities with no real products or services, hundreds of millions of stockholder dollars disappeared. One of those who sued, ironically, was Al Ali Al Sabah, head of the Kuwait National Guard.

One of Skyway’s airplanes turned up in Mexico, via Venezuela, with the 5.5 tons of coke. Its painted tail number was among those identified by the New York Times as belonging to CIA front companies. There were no arrests.

George W’s National Guard mate and Mahfouz rep, James Bath, also set up a Cayman Island company called Skyway Aircraft Leasing, first registered as I.C., Inc., the same offshore firm Oliver North used to funnel money for Iran/Contra.

As documented in North’s testimony, the transactions were arranged by Adnan Khashoggi, through Mahfouz’ BCCI, global laundry for the world’s dirtiest money.

Another plane, registered to Skyways International, in 1999 flew from Venezuela to an airport outside of Paris, where nearly a ton of cocaine was found aboard. So was Arabian Prince Nayif al Saud. Again no arrests.

In the late 1980s, Bakhsh and Mahfouz provided capital for George W. Bush’s oil company Arbusto, and its successor, Harken Energy. The investments only kept Harken afloat for a couple of years. Hiding its losses, Harken offloaded millions in debt and overstated assets to Harvard University’s endowment corporation. The partnership sparked a runup in Harken’s stock, then Harvard and Bush cashed out handsomely, leaving the public shareholders to take the fall. Bush vassal Herbert “Pug” Winokur was a Harvard Board Director.

Later, he would chair Enron’s finance committee, where he voted for the off-balance-sheet transactions that triggered Enron's undoing. He even managed to then sit on the committee investigating the Enron collapse. Winokur was later Chairman of Dyncorp, the major military contractor charged with incompetent police training in Afghanistan, “aggressive behavior” protecting Afghan leader Harmid Karzai; and faced multiple lawsuits alleging involvement in sex trafficking, illegal weapons purchases, and passports forgery.

Bakhsh also was on the board of Investcorp,, founded by Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, in 1982.Yamani’s name appears on the “Golden Chain,” a document seized in a Bosnian anti-terror raid in 2002, introduced in court by U.S Attorneys as a list of Al Qaeda’s top 20 financiers. Khalid bin Mahfouz is also on that list.

In 2005, Investcorp bought a company, CCC Information Services, in which Herbert “Pug” Winokur and Purnendu Chatterjee owned significant stock. Chatterjee is a partner in Winston Group, with Marvin Bush, the president’s brother. Winston Partners also owns 5.5 million shares of Sybase, the first company marketing the software banks must use to comply with the PATRIOT Act.

Categories

Terror Funding | Information Technology | International Finance

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