Finding Gaddafi’s billions will be hard

What remains of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's considerable wealth for the Transitional National Council to claim is unknown with some $60 billion unaccounted for around the world.

Gaddafi and his family have an estimated $33 billion sitting in government coffers plus another $160 billion in foreign accounts, though vast sums have been frozen by governments since the bloody civil war began six months ago, Reuters reports.

As the world's 12th largest oil exporter, Gaddafi and his sons had access to considerable wealth – and his sons made good use of it.

It reports that some of his children had large private yachts, planes and property in cities such as Geneva, Vienna and London.

Mansour El-Kikhia, a professor of political science at the University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas' El-Kikhia said several countries and banks have tracked at least $160 billion of Libyan money in foreign accounts and he estimates another $60 billion has yet to be tracked in other African and Asian countries.

Robert Powell, senior analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, part of the Economist Group, said that while Gaddafi lived a modest life his children liked to live the "high life" abroad.

Powell said Gaddafi lived in tents, and tried to set up camp when he traveled abroad, Powell said.

"His children generally went a little bit off the rails and really enjoyed the high life," Powell said.

Libyan rebels announced this weekend that they had captured three of Gadhafi's sons, including Seif al Islam Gaddafi, his second-eldest son and his reported expected successor but Seif al Islam Gaddafi reappeared on Tuesday. (Read more at GlobalPost.com: Gaddafi's son resurfaces)

Rebels and pro-regime troops continued to fight fierce street battles in several parts of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday afternoon.

Thick clouds of gray and white smoke filled the Tripoli sky as heavy gunfire and explosions shook several districts of the city of 2 million people. Some of the heaviest fighting was around Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya main compound and military barracks, it said.

Officials are unsure where Gaddafi and his other children are located as the lightning rebel advancement on Sunday into Tripoli has so far failed to force down the regime.

Reuters reports:

Mansour El-Kikhia, a professor of political science at the University of Texas, San Antonio, said Gaddafi and his children helped themselves to the Libyan treasury without accountability.

Powell said the Libyan government was "hugely corrupt" and dominated both the political and business networks of the country.

"They paid themselves out of government coffers and gave themselves official roles," Powell said of the Gaddafi family.

Daniel Serwer, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, said Libya's new Transitional National Council could have a "very difficult" time regaining state assets.

"I can guarantee you right now someone is trying to privatize whatever assets are sitting in Libya's central bank, privatizing land, offices, and stealing computers. This is what goes on," Serwer said during a conference call Monday afternoon, hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Powell said part of the difficulty in identifying Gaddafi's bank accounts is that his surname is not easily translated into English.

"Literally there are hundreds of ways to spell 'Gaddafi,'" he said.

Powell said Gaddafi had vast cash and gold resources in Tripoli he could access if other countries froze his foreign assets, which eventually happened, Reuters reports.

The Obama administration announced in February that it had frozen $30 billion belonging to the government of Libya, the Central Bank of Libya and the Libyan Investment Authority. Canada, Austria, the United Kingdom and other countries also froze the regime's assets.

The Dutch government froze about $4.5 billion in March and announced last week it was giving about $144 million of that to the World Health Organization to distribute medicine to the Libyan people, according to the British newspaper, the Telegraph.