Gadhafi Hid a Ton of Money

The Libyan people may have reason to despise Moammar Gadhafi a little bit more: The country's senior officials estimate that the fallen leader's squirreled-away wealth topped the $200 billion mark. As the Los Angeles Times points out, that breaks down to about $30,000 per Libyan, some 30% of whom live in poverty. It's double the amount the West had pegged his hidden riches at, and takes the form of stashes of gold inside of Libya and sizable real estate and corporate investments made in the bulk of the world's major countries, according to the Times.

That foreign investment exploded in the last few years; the majority of the $37 billion in accounts and investments tied to the Libyan regime that were found in the US by government officials this spring arrived here after 2006. One person who reviewed documents related to the asset search called the wealth "staggering. No one truly appreciated the scope of it." The revelation doesn't mean automatic riches for the NTC, notes the Times: To date, the UN has OKed the released of just $1.5 billion of the money found in the US. (Click to read what were apparently Gadhafi's last words.)