Posted on 02/24/2011 3:06:46 PM PST by FromLori
Switzerland today froze the Swiss assets of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and his group, barring the sale of any holdings to avert any potential misuse of state funds.
The decision took effect immediately, and, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said, amounts to a three-year freeze.
Switzerland has been moving aggressively against the despots of the region.
Last week, the government froze assets of the Mubarak family and former officials of his Egyptian regime, and reports this weeks put a renewed focus on the riches built up by Col. Gadhafi and Tunisia’s ex-president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
The Financial Times reported earlier on how the Libyan leader’s family has accumulated huge holdings in industries such as oil and hotels, citing U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks and other sources.
In one such cable from mid-2006, for example, titled ‘Gadhafi Incorporated,’ noted that the Libyan chief frequently speaks out publicly against corruption while at the same time allowing those in the elite, notably his family, “direct access to lucrative business deals.”
According to the newspaper report, diplomats detailed how Col. Gadhafi’s second son had connections to the oil industry, his daughter to energy and construction, and his oldest son to telecommunications.
A third son was involved in planning a new city as a tourist site.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
..oh. like he hasn’t been misusing since, . . what, . .1969?
What’s the world coming to when third-world dictators can’t squirrel their assets away in Switzerland?!
This seems like an odd thing for the Swiss to do, depending on how the accounts/funds were registered, e.g. in the name of the families or the state, etc. Also, an African state having a Swiss bank account also seems odd, at least to me.
I wonder if Obama has a Swiss bank account?
Exactly. This is a strong signal for people to abandon famed Swiss banking and move their money to Panamanian banks. Panama has very strong banking privacy laws.
Panama City is crowded with banks. It is known as the Switzerland of the Americas.
Wow, don’t keep in money in Switzerland. When did they appoint themselves policeman of Libya’s state funds?
First they seized the assets of the Egyptian dictator, and I did not speak up because I was not an Egyptian dictator. Then they seized the assets of the Libyan dictator, and I did not speak up because I was not a Libyan dictator...
Fine, but I notice they didn’t freeze his assets before today. He’s only been in power fifty years.
Mubarak was in office for decades, but they only decided to seize his assets after he was on the ropes.
You could wonder if there wasn’t maybe a bit of a conflict of interest here. They seize billions and, whats the downside for the bank? If Khadaffi was a thief, does that make them the thief of a thief? Complicit in the theft for half a century, and now they help themselves to the whole thing.
They choose the moment of greatest vulnerability and then freeze the account, in effect deciding the outcome of a civil war. So, fine, bringing down Khadaffi is a good thing, but this sets a different precedent. This encourages dictators to stay and fight rather than take the last plane out.
It also means that your banker gets the final word on whether or not you get the contents of your bank account when the day comes you really need it. Of course, if you’re Khadaffi and billions are at stake, you should make sure you have people who know the home address of the people trying to make off with your money.
Which US Banks Are Managing Billions For The $32 Billion Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund?
Not just the bankers.
Who else would they be protecting they let them have the account for years?
The American politicians allowing them to do it.
Many 3rd world countries, including those in Africa, are not 'states' in the classic sense. They do not have a well developed sense of community-property backed by a self-perpetuating legal system. Instead they have ad-hoc law eminating from a strong-man dictator who quite naturally treats the public treasury as his own private piggy-bank.
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