The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions review – BBC Four digs into the mystery of the missing money
On the night of 26 December 2010, a private plane filled with $12.5 billion of Libyan money was smuggled into Johannesburg airport. The funds were sent by the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi for safekeeping, but the precise whereabouts of this large sum has since become a mystery. In the wake of Gaddafi’s deposition and death in October 2011, during the high tide of the Arab Spring, the internationally-recognised Libyan government in Tripoli has sought to reclaim this vast fortune. This has in turn triggered a ruthless contest among money hunters, one fuelled by the promise of a lucrative 10% finders’ fee from the Libyan government itself.
This money hunt provides the backdrop for the latest episode in BBC Four’s Storyville documentary series – The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions. It is based on the investigations of two daring Dutch journalists, Misha Wessel and Thomas Blom, who have gone to great lengths to uncover the characters and rivalries caught up in the hunt for Libya’s lost treasure.
The varied cast of figures with whom Wessel and Blom conducted interviews form the heart of this mini-documentary. A range of overlapping motives, from the cynical to the idealistic, are playfully put on display. We meet Eric Goaied, a Tunisian money hunter who was once connected to the Gaddafi regime, and who claims that he is still in close contact with the late dictator’s son, Saif. One highlight of these interviews is Tito Maleka, a former Head of Security for the African National Congress. There is a certain pathos to the way that the ageing Maleka, who served as an inmate in Robben Island prison with Nelson Mandela, expresses his dismay at the venality of younger generations of ANC politicians and their links to the lost money.
There is much to be admired in the journalistic endeavour underpinning this documentary. The raw material is fascinating and some of the discoveries are very interesting indeed. Yet the presentation leaves much to be desired. It follows a strict, chronological order and is narrated in an adequate but rather monotonous manner. The intention was probably to allow the interviews to speak for themselves. This is understandable, but with such a complex, multi-faceted story, this approach gives the documentary a slightly disjointed feel. It lacks the compelling storytelling that makes the best political documentaries so thrilling.
The unfortunate result is that a story filled with so much intrigue somehow feels unintriguing. Bombshell revelations, such as the alleged presence of South African mercenaries in Libya during the Arab Spring or the active role played by Gaddafi in promoting the career of former South African President, Jacob Zuma, fall flat when they have the potential to leave a deep impression.
This is a shame, because the story uncovered by Wessel and Blom is important and, if only it were presented in a slightly more creative way, it could have amounted to so much more. The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions gives us a slightly straightforward account of corruption and duplicity when it also could have provided an examination of the legacies of this corruption among the societies in question: the ANC’s South Africa and Libya after Gaddafi. The sense of why the story of this money matters ends up getting lost in a documentary that focuses too much on personalities and plot twists without drawing these into a broader picture or providing a satisfying payoff after one hour and thirty minutes of viewing.
Despite its flaws, this is precisely the sort of valuable investigation that BBC Four should be hosting. It casts light on a world in which corruption is a central instrument of power and exposes the grubby games of governments which have betrayed the interests and hopes of their own peoples. It asks awkward questions of those in power. For that alone, its producers are to be applauded.
The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions is available on BBC iPlayer now.