Khalid bin Mahfouz, a billionaire Saudi banker who paid $225 million to settle charges of bank fraud in 1993 and later won a string of lawsuits in Britain against writers who had accused him of supporting terrorism, died Sunday at his home in Jidda. He was 60. The cause was a heart attack, according to reports in the Arab news media.In many ways, Sheik Mahfouz typified Saudi ArabiaÂ’s super-wealthy. He maintained opulent homes around the world and traveled in his own Boeing 767 with gold-plated bathroom fixtures, The New York TimesÂ’s Douglas Martin writes. Last year, the magazine Arabian Business ranked him 24th in its list of the 50 richest Arabs, with a fortune estimated at $3.35 billion.
He rose to prominence through his 30 percent ownership in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which was shut down in 1991 after charges of financial chicanery and money laundering. Sheik Mahfouz paid $225 million to settle fraud charges by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the Federal Reserve. District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said $37 million of the settlement was a fine. But Sheik Mahfouz denied that any of the settlement was a fine, pointing out that he had not acknowledged any wrongdoing. He said he had agreed to the settlement “purely as a business decision.”
After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, considerable suspicion fell on Saudi financiers and charities as sources of financing for terrorism. Partly because