Business Notes

The Federal Reserve Board is pushing the scandal-tainted Bank of Credit & Commerce International -- or at least those parts it can find -- out of the U.S. Under Fed pressure, the Luxembourg-based bank, which pleaded guilty in 1990 to laundering millions in drug money, agreed last week to close its U.S. offices and give up its previously hidden interest in First American, a Washington-based bank holding company.

The move signals mounting troubles for First American's top officers, longtime Washington power broker Clark Clifford and his law partner Robert Altman. They have been telling bank regulators for the past decade that BCCI did not control or hold any financial interest in First American. But it seems BCCI may have still other U.S. operations. Federal investigators are probing its links to Independence Bank, which is in Encino, Calif., and owned by Saudi millionaire Ghaith Pharaon, who has been involved in complex banking transactions with BCCI. In one, he purchased the National Bank of Georgia for $18 million and nine years later sold it, along with two small Florida banks, to First American for $200 million -- a deal regulators are re-examining.