Scandals: Gilt by Association

Banks need banks, just as companies and ordinary people do. But what institution would do serious business with the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the rogue financier of crooks, drug lords and con men? As investigators probe the debris of the vast scandal, the name that most persistently comes up is Bank of America, one of the top five in the U.S. The bank, which co-founded B.C.C.I. in 1972, takes pains to emphasize that it sold off its stake in the Middle Eastern institution in 1980. But ties between the two were far more extensive and long lasting than Bank...