Posted on 10/23/2011 11:59:21 AM PDT by PGR88
Latest estimates of the hidden cash, gold and investments that the dead dictator had salted away are double what Western governments suspected
Muammar Gaddafi secretly salted away more than US$200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world, about US$30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments had suspected, senior Libyan officials say. The new estimates of the dead dictator's hidden cash, gold reserves and investments were staggering, one person who has studied detailed records of the asset search said. "No one truly appreciated the scope of it."
Meanwhile, Gaddafi's corpse remained in a market cold store in Misrata, where the curious filed in to view the fallen strongman.
Gaddafi's surviving family has asked that his body, and that of his son Mutassim, be handed over to tribal kinsmen from Sirte. Officials with the National Transitional Council said they were trying to arrange a secret burial place that would avoid loyalist supporters making it a shrine.
Fathi Bashagha, a spokesman for the Misrata military council, said a decision about the burial would be made late yesterday. He ruled out a full autopsy unless demanded by an international committee or the transitional government "and so far there have been no requests".
In Benghazi, leaders were preparing a formal declaration today that the whole country was "liberated", a move that starts the clock ticking on a plan to install a transitional government, draft a constitution and institute full democracy by 2013.
Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister in the rebel government, confirmed he would step down later in the day. He said the coming days would be a critical test of how the new leadership and Libya's six million people could handle their freedom after 42 years at Gaddafi's whim.
News of the scope of Gaddafi's investments will doubtless anger his former subjects, about one-third of whom live in poverty. Though the investments would seem to offer a bonanza for the transitional government, it is struggling to reclaim the money because of legal barriers created by a UN freeze on Libyan assets and national laws designed to ensure seized assets are only released to the legal owner.
Obama administration officials were stunned last spring when they found US$37 billion in Libyan regime accounts and investments in the US. Governments in France, Italy, England and Germany seized control of US$30 billion or so. Investigators estimated that Gaddafi had stashed another US$30 billion elsewhere, for a total of about US$100 billion.
But subsequent investigations by American, European and Libyan authorities determined that Gaddafi secretly sent tens of billions more abroad over the years and made sometimes lucrative investments in nearly every major country, including much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The US$200 billion figure is about double the pre-war annual economic output of Libya, which has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa.
I wonder how much each US citizen would get if some "rebels" took over the U.S. Government.
Nobody with virtue supported this revolution. The same players orchestrating the campaign against all of N Africa and the MidEast will become more corrupt, lining their accounts with the plunder.
Unfortunately, their lust for more power by corrupt machinations is insatiable.
With that kind of stash Gaddafi should have got going when the going was good. He could have been living high on the hog up to his eyeballs in the fashion designer dressees he favored and Ukrainian nurses catering to his every whim.
Now the Nigerian uncles who are trying to take excess funds out of the country will have to compete with Libyans withdrawing impounded funds from secret bank accounts.
To all: Don’t settle for less than a billion! No matter what it costs!
Exactly. You can make a safe bet the citizens will see little of it.
Is there any chance that the United States can recover the $1 billion we spent to help liberate them?
Obama and GWB (in Iraq) can’t be bothered.
how is anyone gonna get hold of this money?
He was obviously very thrifty if he managed to put away that much.
"As he had come naked from his mother’s womb, so will he return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand." (Ecclesiastes 5:15)
So....he was probably the richest man in the World—correct?
Should have shaved the beard, cut the hair, put on a groucho marx nose and 'stache and skeedaddled to Argentina, with his cute body guards of course.
But no, he was diss'ed, so he had to stay and force the opposition into submission.
stupid.
The guy never gave any evidence of livin' large. When threatened he didn't seem to have any inclination to escape.
ML/NJ
How much of this will be paid back to US taxpayers who funded the topple?
I'll bet those billions did NOT come from the fruit of his labor, that money came from the fruit of the labor of American taxpayers, and was given to him via wasted Foreign Aid. This is just more proof that Foreign Aid goes not to benefitting the citizens of the receiving countries, but to the crooked dictators who keep it all for themselves.
Dumb politicians have never learned that you cannot buy friendship or loyalty. The more Foreign Aid we give, the more the U.S. is hated. Now asll that money will be stolen or diverted to create a Muslim government. Good going Staste Department (sarcasm).
Hope we get our expenses back.
You’re right. The money is probably what he swiped from Lybian oil sales.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.