The leader from Tripoli, Muammar Gaddafi, has tens of billions of dollars in cash. There’s cash that he keeps in his complex Bab Azizia in the Libyan capital, money used to pay the 25,000 mercenaries running on his orders, according to Le Figaro.
Mercenaries are expensive for Colonel Gaddafi. Several hundred dollars per day for each fighter, paid cash. Despite the wealth that had been frozen by the international community, Libyan leader doesn’t appear to face money problems.
Huge sums are stored in multiple currencies. According to sources close to the Libyan government and quoted by The New York Times, it would be tens of billions of dollars. The astronomical amount should not surprise us, French journalists write. Before the crisis, Libya produced between 1.6 and 1.8 million barrels of oil per day.
A part of Libya’s oil revenue goes to Gaddafi and his family, according to French lawyer William Bourdon.
“Gaddafi is one of the top leaders who understood how to benefit from financial globalization”, says the lawyer.
Despite restrictions, Gaddafi’s money is still circulating. Many Libyan emissaries are carrying suitcases of cash around the world. Belgian journalists have recently written that money were transferred from several Libyan bank accounts to Chad and Sudan.
In addition, the UN suspects that the regime has forged official figures on oil production, in fact much higher.
Cash that he has allows Gaddafi to pay army of 25,000 mercenaries, according to a member of the National Transitional Council.
The army of mercenaries consists of people from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad or Nigeria.