Scandal? What Scandal?

In the West, the most outrageous aspect of the crackdown on the Bank of Credit & Commerce International is that it was so long overdue. But most Pakistanis hold a very different view of the global banking empire founded by fellow countryman Agha Hasan Abedi.

At home he is revered as a courageous Third World entrepreneur whose bank has been hounded by racist Western financial interests. In Karachi last week, the English-language Daily News made the extraordinary claim that "Jewish pressure" led U.S. authorities to crack down on B.C.C.I.'s laundering of drug money. Said Rubab Khan, a Karachi business executive: "This is part of the Western plot to seize all the money and assets of the Arabs and drive out the Pakistani bankers from international banking."

Sinister theories also echoed in the Persian Gulf last week. At the Bahrain Marina Club, a Saudi computer operator explained, "It seems to many of us in the Muslim world that the bank is being attacked, at least in part, because of its Muslim ideals." Ideals? That view of B.C.C.I.'s criminal management may seem strange enough, but Muslims harbor even more elaborate conspiracy theories, linking B.C.C.I.'s problems with those of another onetime Muslim success story, Saddam Hussein. A senior executive with one of Bahrain's largest companies notes that the powers closing in on B.C.C.I. are "the same people who were involved in the coalition during the gulf war, mainly America, Britain and France." Many gulf residents believe, he says, that the Western coalition members are "not satisfied with now controlling the Middle East militarily. Through this action against B.C.C.I., the coalition is also seeking to control us financially and economically."