Libya's new leaders will have to dig deep to find billions of dollars in cash and assets that Muammar Gaddafi and his family stashed around the world, and then will face daunting legal hurdles to recover them all, experts said on Friday. About $19 billion in assets believed to have been under the control of Gaddafi or associates have been located and frozen by the United Nations and member countries, U.S. officials have said since rebel forces began fighting to oust him from power.
But other estimates suggest Gaddafi controlled as much as $30 billion in assets in the United States alone, plus large holdings in Europe and South Africa, said Victor Comras, a former money laundering expert for the United Nations and U.S. State Department. "Gaddafi was no dummy," Comras told Reuters. "The obvious and easy money, that held in Western banks and financial institutions, has largely already been located and blocked."
reuters