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In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...

BERN, Switzerland - The United States believes it has found at least $300 million Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) hid in banks, yet doesn't have enough evidence to get countries such as Syria and Switzerland to hand over the money, U.S. and European officials told The Associated Press. The funds at stake could go to the Iraq (news - web sites) insurgency or the country's reconstruction — depending on who gets it first. What troubles investigators more is that much of Saddam's cash may already be gone. The weak U.S. intelligence and the slow-moving investigation, now in its 11th...

The hunt is on for billions of dollars in ill-gotten assets accumulated by the family of Saddam Hussein, now believed to be scattered in a labyrinthine network of front companies and secret bank accounts from Panama to Switzerland to Jordan. As U.S. forces moved into Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, investigators reported signs of large sums of money moving from Iraqi government-controlled accounts to private accounts in the Middle East. "People with connections are trying to loot what they can," said one private investigator with access to information about money flows around the region. < SNIP > One of the...

<p>Saddam: French media mogul MEDIA monolith Hachette Filipacchi, already fearing an anti-French backlash, has a bigger problem: Saddam Hussein owns a $90 million stake in its parent company. Saddam owns just under 2 percent of Lagardere SCA, the French company of which Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., publishers of Elle, Car & Driver, Women's Day and other titles, is a unit. His shares are held by Iraqi-controlled Montana Management, based in Geneva. Saddam's Hachette holdings first came to light when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and the UN Security Council along with the French and U.S. governments acted to freeze Iraq's assets. At the time he was the second-largest shareholder in Hachette SA, controlling 8.4 percent of the company. Fearing a backlash, Hachette brass voiced their intention to buy the Iraqi strongman out, which most people assumed had been done long ago. In fact, Saddam still has his stake and it's currently worth $90 million, a Hachette rep confirmed to PAGE SIX's Jared Paul Stern. "Under international sanctions, blocked assets are being held until future direction from the UN and applicable governments," the rep said. "Those assets are frozen." Since Saddam has no representation on Hachette's board of directors, he has no influence over the company, and Hachette's spokeswoman assured us the firm is unafraid of a backlash. Some American Elle advertisers we contacted yesterday had no idea Saddam ever owned a slice of Hachette. "We don't know anything about it," said a rep for MAC cosmetics. Donna Karan's people had no comment. Reps for Coach, Estee Lauder and Banana Republic were similarly in the dark. In 1990, when the Saddam-Hachette news broke on "60 Minutes," publishers of Hachette magazines placed emergency calls to top advertisers in a bid to keep them from leaving. They also established a "circulation crisis group" to deal with subscribers who wanted to cancel over the news. Hachette has been testing consumer reaction to the fact that it is a French company, to determine whether "guilt by association" will harm it, Hachette U.S. CEO Jack Kliger told Media Industry Newsletter. Americans "feel comfortable buying [Elle] just as they do with say, Evian and L'Oreal, and dining in French restaurants. Remember too, there are Americans who oppose war with Iraq."</p>