Word: dubai
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...Nairobi, wet weather meant one thing: it was time to jump into his car and drive quickly up and down the clay runway. If his wheels got stuck, he would wave off any approaching airplane. He has come a long way. Now vice chairman and group president of Dubai-based Emirates Airlines, Flanagan is in charge of the globe's 14th largest and fifth-most-profitable airline. Under his watch, the once tiny, government-owned Emirates Airlines has been transformed, growing more than 20% a year for the past 17 years. It posted a record $429 million profit...
...Emirates answer: new first-class interiors. First-class "seats" on its New York--to-Dubai route are fully enclosed suites whose seats turn into beds (with a massage feature), complete with vanity mirrors, 19-in. video screens with 150 selections and in-flight e-mail. There is a personal minibar (only juice, soda and water, but you can order alcohol from the flight attendants on your personal "room service" phone). And if that's not enough, the lighting changes to reflect the time of day, ending with a ceiling display of the Dubai night sky. The food is high quality...
Khan's base of operations became Dubai, with its easy transit connections by air and its balmy beachfront climate. Dealmaking was suitably informal. A key member of Khan's network told investigators that Iranian contacts once dropped off in Khan's apartment two suitcases containing $3 million in cash as a payment. From 1999 on, Khan traveled to Dubai 41 times, the Pakistani government says. Khan also kept a penthouse on posh al-Maktoum Road. When arranging a shipment, he would set up in Dubai dozens of shell companies consisting of nothing more than "a fax machine and an empty...
...meetings with his underlings and potential customers, Khan favored other exotic locales: Istanbul and Casablanca. Pakistani sources say Khan used Dubai gold dealers to launder smuggling profits. At the height of his power, Khan was worth as much as $400 million...
Khan's right-hand man, what an intelligence official calls the managing director of his operation, was Buhary Sayed Abu Tahir, 44, a Sri Lankan whom Khan first met in Dubai in the mid-'90s. Tahir idolized Khan, mimicking him in sometimes expensive ways. In homage to the boss's vintage fleet, Tahir tooled around Dubai in a luxury car. To Khan, Tahir became indispensable. He divided his time between Kuala Lumpur (his wife is Malaysian) and Dubai. Through his connections in Malaysia, Tahir arranged for centrifuge components to be manufactured at a publicly traded company called Scomi Precision Engineering...