The hunt for Gaddafi's billions

For over forty years Colonel Muammar ‘Mad Dog’ Gaddafi ruled Libya with an iron fist. Dissidents were killed, critics tortured, rumors circulated that the man himself was behind several airline disasters, including Lockerbie. The bloodshed stretched into the thousands. Gaddafi also sponsored freedom fighters and terrorist groups, such as IRA, the Spanish ETA and FARC in Columbia.

During his four decade-long reign, the Libyan oil made him the richest dictator in Africa, amassing a wealth of $150 billion. After his violent death in 2011, nobody quite seemed to know what had happened to his bloody bounty though. It seemed as if it had all just disappeared; vanished into thin air. But in fact, most of the money had been secretly smuggled out of the country. Through shady bank transactions, arms deals or boxes full of cash. To Europe, to the Emirates and to South Africa, the country of Gaddafi’s old friend Nelson Mandela.

With strong rumors emerging that a part of Gaddafi’s billion dollar treasure is hidden in South Africa, two teams of bounty hunters are in a race to track down the cash and bring it back to the Libyan people. Each team claims to be working under a mandate handed down by the Libyan authorities, and each say they want the money brought back to where it rightfully belongs. But nothing is as simple as it seems – especially in the fraudulent underworld. There are false agendas, good guys turn out to be crooks and vice versa.