A Banker for All Seasons

In this never before published screenplay, A Banker for All Seasons dramatically presents the rise and fall of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a third world bank that became an international empire. BCCI pioneered a mode of operation based on deception and included money laundering, arms trafficking, smuggling, and the covert sale of nuclear technologies. Tariq Ali was one of the first public voices to warn that the Bank was not all it seemed to be. Indeed, many of its own employees called BCCI the "Bank of Crooks and Cheats Incorporated". The Bank finally imploded amidst a welter of scandal. By combining screenplay and political essay, Ali reveals how BCCI lasted so long, how financial regulators failed to see what was going on and how it prepared the way for other financial cataclysms in the decades to come.