Real Estate, Aircraft Built Up Fortune : Family: Ibrahims invested in Marina del Rey, other L.A. properties, and brokered airplane deals.

For Saudi Arabian billionaire Abdul Aziz al Ibrahim, the movie business was a substantial departure from the more familiar real estate development and aircraft businesses in which he and his brothers had built a huge fortune.

They had been middlemen in a $1-billion oil-for-jetliners barter deal in which the Saudi national airline bought jumbo jetliners from the Boeing Aircraft Co. in 1984, according to reports in the Times of London and in Fortune Magazine. And the next year, according to the London Observer, the Ibrahims helped sell an initial order of British warplanes--Tornado fighter bombers and Hawk training jets--to the Saudi government in a deal that U.S. authorities estimated could exceed $30 billion.

Proceeds from those deals thrust the Ibrahim brothers into the ranks of the world’s richest men--just as Abdul Aziz was being introduced to Brooke Shields and the film industry.

Most of their military and commercial aircraft profits have been channeled into real estate investments. The Ibrahims have extensive holdings in Saudi Arabia, the United States and Europe. Abdul Aziz maintains residences in Riyadh, London, Paris and Marbella, Spain, where visitors to “the palace” say they have a guitar-shaped swimming pool.

“He (Abdul Aziz) likes Elvis Presley. He thinks he looks like Elvis,” said one business associate, explaining the unusual pool.

Ibrahim holdings in the U.S. include Ritz-Carlton hotels in New York, Washington, D.C., and Houston; a Ritz-Carlton Hotel under construction in Aspen, Colo., and the Woodfield Corporate Center, a large office-hotel complex near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

In addition, Ibrahim is the owner--through a series of front companies--of a small, run-down hotel across the street from the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; some undeveloped land near Disney World in Florida, and eight spectacular acres of view property in the hills above Bel-Air.

The family’s growing U.S. holdings are managed out of the Century City offices of Newfield Enterprises International, a company that came to prominence in Southern California after Ibrahim used it to invest anonymously in Los Angeles County-owned Marina del Rey two years ago. The Ibrahim brothers subsequently were identified by The Times as the principal investors.

After published accounts in July linked the Ibrahims to BCCI, Los Angeles County officials requested a full disclosure of their relationship with the bank. An Ibrahim spokesman said the group would cooperate with the county. Responding to a Times inquiry, the spokesman would say only that “this organization has been doing business with BCCI as a legitimate banking institution for many, many years.”

One American associate of the Ibrahims said the family sharply curtailed its involvement with the Bank of Credit & Commerce International about two years ago after bank officials were accused in Florida of laundering money for drug barons.

“They withdrew a lot of money. I mean, a lot of money,” said the source, who declined to specify an amount.