The world’s dictators have always sought to accrue money as well as political power.
Some have grown extraordinarily rich in doing this. One example is Muammar Gaddafi, the former leader of the African state of Libya.
He ranked at the top of a list compiled by Siliconindia of what are thought to be the world’s richest modern dictators.
The autocrat was slain by militia in 2011 after losing a civil war.
He and his inner cohort reportedly hid in draining pipes at a construction site.
Gaddafi’s net worth is said to be $200 billion. His assets were frozen in March 2011.
It is believed that the US held $30 billion of the family’s investments, and Canada had frozen $2.4 billion.
Austria, meanwhile, had frozen $1.7billion, with the UK freezing $1billion.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Gaddafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments worldwide.
According to senior Libyan officials, this was equal to around $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments suspected.
Gaddafi rose to power at the age of 27 when he led a coup that overthrew Libya’s ruling monarch.
He was later appointed commander in chief of the armed forces and the Chairman of the country’s new Revolutionary Command Council.
From then on, he began to take control of the state.
However, whether this huge wealth belonged to Gaddafi personally has been questioned.
Forbes argues that his regime’s agencies administered the funds, and so the vast majority of those assets were never owned directly by Gaddafi or members of his family.
The magazine says that, just as governments maintain sovereign wealth funds, so too did Libya under the dictator.
It was “established for the purpose of diversifying the profits flowing from Libya’s state-controlled oil producers”.
However, Forbes added that what is known for certain is that Gaddafi “squeezed all he could” out of the Libyan people to support a lavish lifestyle, and if he wanted to raid Libya’s treasury directly, the cash was “there for his taking.”
