On 9 June, Vanity Fair published Adam Ciralsky's article 'Raiders of the Looted Assets: Inside the High-Stakes Race to Recover Qaddafi's Ill-Gotten Billions'. Ciralsky examines the hunt for Libyan assets, including billions in bank accounts, bonds, gold, real estate, and rare antiquities, that were stolen or misappropriated by Qaddafi and his associates during his four-decade rule. Ciralsky paints a cautionary tale, highlighting ex-oil minister Shukri Ghanem's suspicious death in 2012 after he allegedly threatened to expose those who profited from plundering Libyan assets. Exploring the ongoing recovery efforts, Ciralsky conducted a series of interviews with various individuals involved in the hunt for Libyan assets, including: Mohamed Ramadan Mensli, director of the Libyan Asset Recovery and Management Office (LARMO); Lt. Col. (Ret.) Tim Lawrence, who has been helping LARMO in their attempts to repossess Libyan stolen assets; Ambassador Jonathan Winer, former US Special Envoy for Libya and author of the forward for Libya-Analysis founder Jason Pack's book, Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder; and Oren Warshavsky, attorney and partner at BakerHosteler and co-chair of their Global Fraud and International Asset Tracing and Recovery Team. The article examines their efforts to find and recover these assets in what Ciralsky calls a 'high-stakes scavenger hunt', the acceleration of which has been pushed by American and European authorities trying to crack down on trafficked artefacts.
Read the full article here.