Moammar Gadhafi’s regime controls $32 billion in liquid assets around the world, including hundreds of millions of dollars invested in US banks, according to a confidential cable written by the U.S. Ambassador to Libya last year. The leaked diplomatic message was distributed through WikiLeaks.

The same cable reported that Libya had been approached by two men accused of running huge Ponzi schemes, Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford, but had resisted offers from them to invest Libyan funds with them. Madoff is serving time in a U.S. prison; Stanford has not been convicted of a crime and is awaiting trial.

The cable is entitled “Technology of Tourism: Head of Libyan Investment Authority Discusses Opportunities for US Business in Libya,” and was written Jan. 28, 2010, by US ambassador Gene A. Cretz, after a meeting with Mohamed Layas, the head of the LIA, Libya’s sovereign wealth fund. Sovereign wealth funds are the vehicles used by Middle East and other governments to invest oil wealth. The LIA, according to U.S. intelligence, is controlled by Gadhafi’s regime.

(Source: NBC)