Personal Wealth
Italian companies had a strong foothold in Libya. In January 2002 Gaddafi purchased a 7.5% share of Italian football club Juventus for US$21 million, through the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company. This followed a long-standing association with Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli and car manufacturer Fiat.
On 25 February 2011, Britain's Treasury set up a specialised unit to trace Gaddafi's assets in Britain. Gaddafi allegedly worked for years with Swiss banks to launder international banking transactions. In November 2011, The Sunday Times identified property worth £1 billion in the UK that Gaddafi owned.
Gaddafi had an Airbus A340 private jet, which he bought from Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia for $120 million in 2003. Operated by Tripoli-based Afriqiyah Airways and decorated externally in their colours, it was used in 2009 to repatriate Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, on his licensed release from prison in Scotland. The plane was captured at Tripoli airport in August 2011 as a result of the Libyan civil war, and found by BBC News reporter John Simpson to contain various luxuries including a jacuzzi.
Read more about this topic: Al-Kadafi
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or wealth:
“Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided.... No personal considerations should stand in the way of performing a duty.”
—Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)
“I see an America whose rivers and valleys and lakes, hills and streams and plains; the mountains over our land and nature’s wealth deep under the earth, are protected as the rightful heritage of all the people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)