Audit Says Kabul Bank Began as ‘Ponzi Scheme’

New York Times ^ | 26 Nov 2012 | Matthew Rosenburg

[bjorn14]

Kabul Bank became Afghanistan’s largest financial institution by offering the promise of modern banking to people who had never had a saving or checking account. What it really dealt in was modern theft: “From its very beginning,” according to a confidential forensic audit of Kabul Bank, “the bank was a well-concealed Ponzi scheme.”

Afghan and American officials had for years promoted Kabul Bank as a prime example of how Western-style banking was transforming a war-ravaged economy. But the audit, prepared this year for Afghanistan’s central bank by the Kroll investigative firm, gives new details of how the bank instead was institutionalizing fraud that reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars and obliterated Afghans’ trust after regulators finally seized the bank in August 2010 and the theft was revealed.

[bjorn14]

Afghan's first taste of real banking run by thieves.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Afghan Scam ?
Surprise, surprise !

[ILS21R]

[KarlInOhio]

Audit Says Kabul Bank Began as ‘Ponzi Scheme’ ,

By the way, how are the plans for a full independent audit of the Federal Reserve going?

[youngidiot]

Started out as a ponzi scheme. But is it still? I’d be impressed if they were able to pull out of a ponzi scheme because I don’t know of it ever happening before.

[Dixie Yooper]

Wait till the Taliban show up to make a with drawl...

[Hans]

Penny Ante stuff. It took the US officials to give it a stamp of approval, and US officials are the experts in running fraudulent financial institutions.