Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy may have stashed more than $200 billion in bank accounts and investments around the world – a staggering amount for a dictator of a country where one-third of  people live in poverty, the Los Angeles Times reported, just two days after he was shot and killed.

If that amount is correct, it is not only nearly double what Western government officials suspected – but its more than what Mexican businessman Carlos Slim (the most wealthy person in the world by Forbes) has in his coffers,  Gawker.com pointed out.

The findings were called “staggering” by one source.
“No one truly appreciated the scope of it,” the source told the Times.

The $200 billion figure is double the prewar economic output of the oil-rich country, the Times said.

It was spread between everything from liquid assets, to funds at U.S. banks, to investments in the parent company of Penguin Books and even a stake in an Italian soccer team, the Week reported in March.

Now, international investigators are attempting to track down the wealth and use it to re-invest in the reconstruction of Libya.

“It’s extraordinary how the Gadhafi regime squandered so much oil wealth and left it a deprived country in terms of infrastructure,” Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS CERA, an energy research firm told the Washington Post. “The country will need oil revenues to rebuild and recover.”

(Source: NY Daily News)