Muammar Gaddafi stashed over $1.1 Billion in Libyan government assets in two New York based banks. The government money in the New York based banks is not the only money that the Libyan leader had stashed in America. The United States froze Libya assets back in February and technically the money should be released back to Libya, but that may not happen. Read more about the money after the jump.
@Julie1205
Moammar Khadafy’s credit is good in New York.
The Libyan madman stashed $1.1 billion of government assets in two New York City-based banks, The Post has learned.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs is holding onto $604,972,056.56 of Libyan government assets, and JPMorgan Chase has a cool $513,319,668.58, according to a report provided to The Post by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Wells Fargo has $6,098,291.04, and Bank of America has $837,875.85, according to the Libya Sanctions Blocked Assets Report.
The report does not show any of the banks holding personal funds for Khadafy or his son, Seif al-Islam Khadafy.
The United States froze the assets in February after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya. The total amount of the frozen assets in the US is estimated at some $37 billion including property and investments.
The State Department last week said it had released $1.5 billion in Libyan funds with $500 million to go to UN agencies for humanitarian support, $500 million going to pay fuel costs, and $500 million to be held in a special fund to be used for health, education and social services.
The State Department and US Treasury refused to comment on whether the assets in the four banks were those being released.
Goldman Sachs and Chase refused to comment.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said that seven Libyan accounts and 30 transactions had been frozen and that the bank had not been approached to unfreeze them. The Bank of America also said it had not been contacted by the government about releasing the money.
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the United States would likely hold onto most of the Libyan assets for now.
“It’s not in the interest of the US to be forking over billions of dollars to the rebels,” said Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official.
“They want to wait to see how the funds are going to be used, and they want to see if they’re going to be used appropriately.
