Sherkhan Farnood

Sherkhan Farnud is an Afghan poker player and businessman. He founded the Kabul Bank, the first private bank in his country.

Life

Rise

Farnud came from a poor family in the north of Afghanistan.

In the 1980 Farnud went to Russia where he founded a company that specialized in money transfers for the import of Afghan textiles to Russia. In the following 15 years, he is said to have built a financial network with connections to Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran and China, Europe and California, which was built on the hawala system. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that had carried out money laundering for the Taliban, drug traffickers and al - Qaeda.

Kabul Bank

2004 approved the Afghan government Farnud a license for the Kabul Bank.

Farnud bought together with Mahmoud Karzai, in the 2000s a TV channel by 1.8 million U.S. dollars, a network of petrol stations by about 21 million and a lot of real estate in Kabul.

In 2008 he went into a store with the first Afghan airline Pamir Airways of lost about 98 million U.S. dollars. The money had been invested through a loan from the Kabul Bank.

Farnud invested about 160 million dollars in Palm Islands.

Arrest

In August 2010, the Central Bank of Afghanistan ordered the dismissal of Farnud and Khalilullah Ferosi from the Board of Kabul Bank. Background were massive fraudulent transactions in lending. Both were taken into custody but released in September 2011 by President Karzai with parole.

Poker

Farnud lived as a professional poker player. The World Series of Poker tour puts its profits between 2005 and 2008 of 400 000 U.S. dollars.