Safari Club
The Safari Club takes its name (reportedly de Marenches' idea)[7] after the exclusive resort in Kenya where the group first met in 1976. The club was operated by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi—also a friend of Adham's.[11]
The original charter establishes that an operations centre would be built by 1 September 1976 in Cairo.[8] The group made its headquarters there, and its organization included a secretariat, a planning wing, and an operations wing. Meetings were also held in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. The group made large purchases of real estate and secure communications equipment.[2]
The creation of the Safari Club coincided with the consolidation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). The BCCI served to launder money, particularly for Saudi Arabia and the United States—whose CIA director in 1976, George H. W. Bush, had a personal account. "The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world in order to create the biggest clandestine money network in history."[12]
BCCI also served as an intelligence gathering mechanism by virtue of its extensive contacts with underground organizations worldwide. "They contrived, with Bush and other intelligence-service heads, a plan that seemed too good to be true. The bank would solicit the business of every major terrorist, rebel, and underground organization in the world. The invaluable intelligence thus gained would be discreetly distributed to 'friends' of the BCCI.