Abduction threat sends asset recovery expert for Gaddafi’s money back to Malta

On 8 August, 2014, this article's title was changed from 'Abduction threat sends Gaddafi’s money-hunter back to Malta' to 'Abduction threat sends asset recovery expert for Gaddafi’s money back to Malta'

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A Malta-based finance expert nearly escaped being kidnapped by Libyan militias, but his close shave cost Ali Zeidan the man hunting down Muammar Gaddafi's millions across the globe.

According to intelligence newspaper Maghreb Confidential, Zeidan's first headache of 2014 was to replace Abdalla Kablan, a young IT expert specialising in financial engineering, whom he appointed as boss of the Tracing & Asset-Recovery Support Bureau (TARSB).

But an attempt to abduct Kablan, who lives in Malta, some time in the first days of 2014 while he was in Tripoli, soon left the TARSB headless again.

Kablan was also said to have formed part of a delegation accompanying Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on his trip to Tripoli in June.

Zeidan set up by the TARSB in August 2013 to hunt down billions in petro-dollars which deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his family stashed away all around the globe. Much of this cash includes assets held by Libya's sovereign funds such as the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and LAFICO.

Cooperation was already underway with Interpol, the World Bank, France and Britain, and the United States' attorney general.

But the TARSB is itself besieged by internal politics: the LIA is intent on recovering the hidden assets itself, while another unit called the Asset Recovery Committee (ARC) appointed by former prime minister Abdul Rahim Al Keeb, is intent on recuperating the assets itself.

Maghreb Confidential says the ARC "began a war of attrition with the new bureau by systematically refusing to hand over ongoing cases to it".

Other actors involved in the global hunt for Gaddafi's money is American investigation firm Kroll, and until some time ago Command Global Services, which was dropped when the ARC was replaced by the TARSB.