Libya: Moammar Gadhafi's Billions May be Unaccounted For

Oct. 24, 2011 — -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's war chest might have been large enough at one point to support fighting against rebel forces, but how much Libya's Transitional National Council can extract after Gadhafi's reported death remains to be seen.

Gadhafi had $200 billion in bank accounts, investments, and real estate around the world before he was killed, according to the Los Angeles Times. That figure is much larger than previous estimates that Gadhafi and his family had an estimated $33 billion and $60 billion in unaccounted money around the world.

The country's oil wealth, as the world's 12th largest oil exporter, was a source of high-living not necessarily for Gadhafi but for his children.

Robert Powell, senior analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, part of the Economist Group, said that while Gadhafi lived relatively modestly, generally staying close to his nomadic roots, his children were less traditional.

Powell said Gadhafi lived in tents, and tried to set up camp when he traveled abroad as well.

"His children generally went a little bit off the rails and really enjoyed the high life," Powell said.

Libyan rebels announced in August they had captured three of Gadhafi's sons, including Seif al Islam Gadhafi, his second-eldest son and his reported expected successor.

In addition to Seif al Islam, his brothers, Saadi and Mohammed Gadhafi, have reportedly been arrested.

Mansour El-Kikhia, a professor of political science at the University of Texas, San Antonio, said Gadhafi and his children helped themselves to the Libyan treasury without accountability.

He said some of his children had large private yachts, planes and property in cities such as Geneva, Vienna and London.

Powell said the Libyan government was "hugely corrupt" and dominated both the political and business networks of the country.

"They paid themselves out of government coffers and gave themselves official roles," Powell said of the Gadhafi family.

Daniel Serwer, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, said Libya's new Transitional National Council could have a "very difficult" time regaining state assets.

"I can guarantee you right now someone is trying to privatize whatever assets are sitting in Libya's central bank, privatizing land, offices, and stealing computers. This is what goes on," Serwer said during a conference call Monday afternoon, hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Powell said part of the difficulty in identifying Gadhafi's bank accounts is that his surname is not easily translated into English.

"Literally there are hundreds of ways to spell 'Gadhafi,'" he said.

Powell said Gadhafi had vast cash and gold resources in Tripoli he could access if other countries froze his foreign assets, which eventually happened.

Texas' El-Kikhia said various countries and banks have tracked at least $160 billion of Libyan money in foreign accounts.

The Obama administration announced in February that it had frozen $30 billion belonging to the government of Libya, the Central Bank of Libya and the Libyan Investment Authority. Canada, Austria, the United Kingdom and other countries also froze the regime's assets.

The Dutch government froze about $4.5 billion in March and announced in August it was giving about $144 million of that to the World Health Organization to distribute medicine to the Libyan people, according to the British newspaper, the Telegraph.