Category Archives: Hillary Clinton email

The Hillary Hacker to Plead Guilty, Iceberg Ahead

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Hacker who got some Clinton emails set to plead guilty

Deal could give prosecutors right to question Romanian Marcel Lazar, known online as ‘Guccifer.’

Politico: A Romanian computer hacker who obtained some of Hillary Clinton’s emails by breaking into the account of one of her advisers is expected to plead guilty this week, clearing the way for his unfettered cooperation with federal prosecutors.

Marcel Lazar, who was extradited from Romania in March to face U.S. charges, claimed in interviews aired earlier this month that he also hacked into the Democratic presidential candidate’s personal server. However, that claim has not been verified and a spokesman for Clinton’s presidential campaign has rejected the idea that Lazar ever made it into her server.

Lazar is scheduled to appear in federal court in Alexandria, Va. Wednesday morning for a change of plea hearing, according to court records. A prosecution spokesman and a defense attorney for Lazar did not immediately respond to messages seeking confirmation that the guilty plea is part of a plea bargain with prosecutors. Such deals usually oblige a defendant to assist authorities in all ongoing investigations.

Lazar was indicted in 2014 on nine felony charges stemming from his alleged hack into the emails of several prominent Americans, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a relative of former President George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, and former Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal. A set of Blumenthal’s emails were published online in 2013, disclosing a private email address Clinton used. She later changed the address.

Clinton’s email arrangement is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, believed to be focused on how email messages deemed classified wound up on her server. Some reports have speculated that Lazar could demonstrate how vulnerable Clinton’s unusual email set-up was to foreign hackers, but it’s unclear how significant that fact would be to a decision about whether to seek criminal charges against Clinton or others involved in creating or using the unofficial email system.

Lazar had been set to go to trial in September.

****

Even as Hillary Clinton tries to put questions about her private email server behind her, the FBI has stepped up inquiries into the security of the former secretary of state’s home-made email system and how aides communicated over email, POLITICO has learned.

The FBI’s recent moves suggest that its inquiry could have evolved from the preliminary fact-finding stage that the agency launches when it receives a credible referral, according to former FBI and Justice Department officials interviewed by POLITICO.

“This sounds to me like it’s more than a preliminary inquiry; it sounds like a full-blown investigation,” said Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI. “When you have this amount of resources going into it …. I think it’s at the investigative level.”

The FBI declined to respond to questions about the scope of its ongoing work.

But POLITICO learned that around early October, the FBI requested documents from a company involved in the server arrangement after Clinton left State. It also interviewed a former high-ranking

policy official at State about the contents of top Clinton aides’ emails.

The official, who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity, said the questions explored whether anyone at State was concerned about classified information being put at risk by communicating via email. The source did not know of any such concerns.

Confirmation of the interview and document requests is the first public indication that the agency is moving ahead with its inquiry – and possibly expanding it.

The former State official interviewed by the FBI, for example, had little to do with the Clinton server set-up or any approval process allowing her to use personal email for work — suggesting the FBI’s initial inquiry about the actual physical security of Clinton’s home-made server now also includes looking at the content of messages shared by staff.

Former FBI and Justice officials familiar with the investigative procedures on such matters said the agency must determine two main things: whether the use of an outside email system posed any risks to national security secrets and, if so, whether anyone was responsible for exposing classified information.

FBI Director James Comey acknowledged in October that his agency was probing the server matter generally and believed it had the resources to look into the issues, though he didn’t give specifics.

Over the summer, the Department of Justice said it received a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General about potentially exposed classified information on Clinton’s home-made email server. The referral, Justice said at the time, was not criminal in nature but focused on the counterintelligence law governing national security secrets.

The matter at the time was considered a “preliminary” inquiry.

Clinton’s campaign and lawyers have said they are cooperating, turning over her server and a thumb drive backup of her messages to the FBI. They’ve also said they’re encouraging everyone who worked on the server issue to do the same. Platte River Networks, the Denver-based company that housed her server since she left State in 2013, for example, has said it’s cooperating; so has Datto, another tech company that provided a cloud backup of Clinton’s messages.

But exactly who they’re talking to at the staff level has been unclear. For example: Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff at State and lawyer who helped determine which of her emails were personal and work related, wouldn’t say in a recent Washington Post interview whether she had been contacted due to confidentiality surrounding the FBI’s work.

The FBI ultimately decides whether to take a preliminary inquiry to a full-fledged investigation — and if it does so, it is under no obligation to say so publicly. The classification level of any compromised information “may be a factor in determining whether an FBI investigation is warranted,” reads an overview of FBI procedures.

In its review of Clinton’s emails, the State Department has classified more than 400 messages so far — materials that would not therefore be allowed on a homemade email system, although Clinton has said that none of them were marked classified at the time she or her staff received or sent them.

POLITICO reported on Friday that some of the original messages that triggered the referral — a couple messages the ICIG said were “top secret,” the most sensitive national security material — were no longer considered that protected.

Sources told POLITICO this week that as of a month ago, the Justice Department had not determined how to proceed with Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s top IT expert who oversaw her server but took the Fifth and refused to answer questions when subpoenaed by Congress earlier this year.

Republican lawmakers have weighed an immunity agreement for Pagliano, which would bar him from prosecution and allow him to talk about what he knew of the server: who approved it, why and the security surrounding the system.

His lawyer, reached Thursday, would not confirm whether he’s even been contacted by the FBI.

The agency has asked for documents from Tania Neild, the New York-based technology broker for millionaires, who put the Clintons in touch with Platte River Networks.

Neild confirmed the FBI request in an interview with POLITICO, saying the agency asked her to appear with written documents relating to the advice she gave to her client about negotiating with Platte River. Her company, InfoGrate, acts as a middle man between high-worth individuals and companies that oversee their personal technologies, such as emails.

Neild operates under a confidentiality agreement with all her clients. She said the nondisclosure arrangement precluded her from cooperating with the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is also investigating the server issue and reached out to her for an interview. But the FBI notice, she said, trumped her confidentiality agreement.

Her lawyer would not confirm any contact they may or may not have had with the Department of Justice or the FBI.

“What we did receive were inquiries from [the Senate Homeland Committee] that are looking into various things,” said Ron Safer, of Chicago’s Schiff Hardin. “And whether we have had communications with anybody else, I really can’t say at this point.”

Due to secrecy surrounding any FBI investigation, it is impossible to know exactly where the FBI stands. And since the issue involves the 2016 Democratic front-runner, the work is even more sensitive.

Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, said Justice is likely worried about issuing formal legal notices “because they know it will get out, and then you’re talking about a grand jury investigation.” But he said it’s “not uncommon” for companies to require subpoenas, court orders or other legal notices to cooperate to save their corporate reputation, which could otherwise be jeopardized for sharing personal information.

“I am sure there is hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth across the street at the Hoover Building because you’re going to have people saying ‘I don’t want to produce X documents. Give me a piece of paper that covers me.’ And that’s where push is going to come to shove,” Hosko said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judicial Watch Begins Interrogatories on Hillary’s Team

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Interviews of Clinton aides in email case to begin this week

 Lukens  Mills

 Mull  Pagliano

 Abedin  Kennedy
TheHill: A conservative legal watchdog’s interviews with current and former aides to Hillary Clinton about her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of State will begin Wednesday and stretch into late June, the group announced.

The first person to be deposed as part of a court case concerning Clinton’s bespoke email setup is Lewis Lukens, a former executive director of the State Department’s executive secretariat, Judicial Watch said in a court filing Tuesday.

Sworn testimony with Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, is set to follow and has been scheduled for next Friday.
In subsequent weeks, the watchdog group will question former department executive secretary Stephen Mull, IT expert Bryan Pagliano, an official representative from the State Department, longtime Clinton adviser Huma Abedin, and sitting Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy.

Kennedy’s interview, scheduled for June 29, is slated to be the final interview as part of the Freedom of Information Act case.

Each interview could last for as long as seven hours, Judicial Watch predicted.

The depositions are the first of two separate court-ordered processes for Judicial Watch to obtain evidence as part of different open records cases concerning Clinton’s email setup. The twin court cases were launched to obtain separate documents from Clinton’s time in office but have evolved as judges have raised questions about whether the likely Democratic presidential nominee’s arrangement allowed her to circumvent open records laws.

“This court-ordered testimony could finally reveal new truths about how Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department subverted the Freedom of the Information Act,” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s president, said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition to the officials scheduled to testify as part of the Judicial Watch lawsuit, Judge Emmet Sullivan has said that Clinton herself could be forced to answer questions under oath, depending on information learned through other interviews.

In the second Freedom of Information Act case launched by Judicial Watch, the organization has asked a federal judge to interview Clinton about her email setup. The request would have to be approved by the judge and is likely to face opposition from the State Department.

If it is granted, Clinton’s testimony has the potential to dramatically upend the presidential race, given the simmering concern about her email practices while in office.

Clinton and her campaign have dismissed concerns about the setup, claiming that it was used merely for convenience and that all work-related emails have been handed back to the State Department for record keeping.

Panama Papers: Soros Beyond the Reach of Scrutiny

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Perspective of Soros political donations in 2012

May 2016: George Soros donates $8 million to boost Hillary

2014 was the year that launched the full ‘climate change’ mission.

TheHill: Adviser to President Obama John Podesta met with billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros for a lunchtime meeting at the White House in February, according to meeting records. The White House visitor documents show that shortly after Steyer had committed to spend upward of $100 million on the 2014 election cycle for environmentally friendly candidates who helped put climate change on the map, he met with Podesta and Soros. The three met to discuss global climate change negotiations, and the process of the 2015 United Nations climate change convention to be held in Paris, a White House official told The Hill in an email.

The administration is looking to build momentum going into the talks where 120 nations will work to form a global climate treaty, and set emission reduction targets. President Obama will attend the UN climate summit in New York next month to build on negotiations.

Records show that Steyer met with Podesta again in March. The administration has received criticism from Republicans for its ties with the hedge fund manager turned climate activist.

Panama Papers reveal George Soros’ deep money ties to secretive weapons, intel investment firm

FNC: Billionaire George Soros, who has spent millions of dollars financing Democrats and left-wing causes, used a controversial Panamanian law firm to establish a web of offshore investment partnerships that operate around the world and out of the scrutiny of U.S. regulators, according to leaked documents.

The so-called Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million financial documents tracing the Mossack Fonseca law firm’s efforts to help politicians, celebrities and criminals shield their money from taxes, contain links to Soros, who funds the journalism group that is disseminating the information. So far, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has been silent on its benefactor’s ties to the law firm.

Three offshore investment vehicles controlled by Soros are catalogued in the Panama Papers. Soros Finance, Inc. was incorporated in Panama; Soros Holdings Limited was set up in the British Virgin Islands and a limited partnership called Soros Capital was created in Bermuda.

The laws of Panama, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and a score of “tax havens” allow foreign firms to hide ownership of cash, real estate and other assets from securities regulators and tax collectors in the countries where they are physically headquartered.

On May 9, client data stolen from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama was published online by the ICIJ as part of its Offshore Leaks database. The searchable database contains a portion of the offshore financial records given to the journalists by anonymous whistle-blowers since 2013; it does not include leaked emails and other explanatory data that ICIJ reporters use to write about the offshore financial holdings of newsworthy individuals.

News stories about offshore bank accounts revealed by the Panama Papers brought down Iceland’s prime minister last month. Heads of state, Hollywood stars, heiresses, arms dealers and drug lords who established secret offshore companies and bank accounts are outed almost daily by the ICIJ. Incorporating a business offshore is not illegal, but President Obama has called for the tax loophole to be sealed shut, saying everyone should “pay their fair share.”

Soros, 86, is worth an estimated $25 billion. His Open Society Institute is one of ICIJ’s main funders, granting it $1.5 million last year. The Panama Papers data reveals only the tip of Soros’ offshore iceberg, the Quantum Group of Funds. The ICIJ’s leader, journalist Gerard Ryle, said he had not noticed Soros’ companies in the Offshore Leaks database until FoxNews.com called the matter to his attention.

“I suspect we would have more information [on Soros] because the public database … does not contain the underlying data,” Ryle said in an email FoxNews.com.

FoxNews.com has requested access to that data.

Because it is based offshore, the Quantum Group of Funds is not normally subject to regulation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. But in the mid-1990s, Soros Capital bought several SEC-regulated firms, an act which required it to disclose the basic design of the Quantum network of interlocking offshore companies and bank accounts that shield Soros’ billions.

Soros Capital set up an offshore company in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of investing private equity with the Carlyle Group, alongside members of Saudi Arabia’s Bin Laden family. Carlyle’s partners include ex-heads of state and former CIA officials. The private equity partnership specializes in buying and selling weapons manufacturing and intelligence gathering companies with government and military contracts and it also uses secret offshore companies to conduct business.

Offshore Leaks does not include SEC information, but it reveals Soros Capital as a major investor and corporate officer of AIF (Indonesia) Limited. AIF combines private investments with public funding contributed by Asian governments to develop massive infrastructure projects. The database links Soros Capital to Dongya Ports Limited, owned by a tangle of offshore entities.

Soros is certainly newsworthy. In 1992, the self-styled philosopher-economist nearly bankrupted the Bank of England by manipulating the price of the pound. Five years later, he exacerbated a regional economic crisis by betting against Thai and Malaysian currencies. Billions of dollars in profits from Soros’ currency-pummeling moves flowed through the Quantum Group of Funds.

Soros is the sole proprietor of Manhattan-based Soros Fund Management LLC, which controls his offshore empire. In July 2011, Soros closed the multibillion-dollar fund to all but members of his immediate family, allowing him to escape the Dodd-Frank Act mandate for hedge funds to disclose investors and conflicts of interest. A few months later, Soros lost the final appeal of his 2002 conviction by a French court for insider trading. But he remains a potent political force.

In 2014, Soros donated $381 million of Quantum Group of Funds shares to his Open Society philanthropy. The New York-based charitable foundation supports hundreds of advocacy groups, academic research and investigative journalists that align with Soros’ oft-stated goal to promote globalized capitalism and democracy.

On the other hand, the Panama Papers’ leaker, known as John Doe, said that he had exposed the vast cluster of offshore firms and bank accounts, because “income inequality” and “massive, pervasive corruption” are “the defining issues of our time.”

Soros’ offshore companies may not pay U.S. taxes (his spokesperson, Michael Vachon, declined to answer that question), but the billionaire donates lots of money to Democrats who write and enforce the tax laws. In the 2004 presidential election, he contributed $24 million to George Bush’s opponents. He is the largest donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, plunking down $8 million, so far. He has donated “up to $1 million” to the Clinton Foundation. And Secretary of State Clinton’s emails reveal that Soros has lobbied her on behalf of his interests, which encircle the globe, mostly in the dark.

*****

There is more, and it deals with Hedge Funds, Soros and even political action committee cooperatives.

HuffPo: On the list of the largest U.S. companies by market value, those in the $30 billion to $45 billion range are household names: Capital One Financial, DirecTV, Phillips 66, Yahoo.

But far fewer people know much, if anything, about Citadel Multi-Strategy Equities Master Fund Ltd., with a gross asset value of $33 billion, or Elliott International, L.P., at $30.8 billion, or AQR Style Premia Master Account, valued at $16.6 billion. All are hedge funds organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands.

They’re also just a handful of the funds under the control of some of the biggest political donors in the nation: Kenneth C. Griffin, Paul Singer and Cliff Asness.

Hedge funds — partnerships of big-money investors that, put simply, try to beat the market by pursuing riskier-than-normal investments, often using debt and other forms of leverage — have boomed in recent years, with many producing huge financial gains for an elite pool of individuals, pension funds or other repositories of great wealth. Private and exclusive, the funds are not for the average American; often, the customers are not Americans at all.

The industry has made certain Americans very, very rich, though — and has helped create a new class of megadonors in U.S. politics. Besides Griffin (of Citadel Advisors LLC), Singer (Elliott Management Corp.) and Asness (AQR Capital Management), they include Robert Mercer and James Simons (Renaissance Technologies), Donald Sussman (Paloma Partners) and Seth Klarman (Baupost Group). These seven individuals who lead six hedge fund firms have together given at least $60 million to candidates, super PACs and political party committees since the beginning of 2015.

(The fund once managed by George Soros, another major industry donor, is now a family office and has no SEC Form ADV on file.)

The release of the Panama Papers has brought fresh reminders of the stunning amount of wealth held offshore, but that’s a world these donors and their firms navigate routinely as part of a rarefied investment community far more wealthy and sophisticated than the market to which most people have access.

OpenSecrets Blog analyzed hundreds of pages of reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the six firms. The reports give new insight into these donors whose money is increasingly dominating political giving, thus allowing them disproportionate access to policymakers.

All told, the value of their 151 hedge funds is as high as $390 billion. Most of that is in the funds based overseas, mostly in the Cayman Islands. Of the 151 funds in the firms’ SEC reports, 67 are organized under the laws of the Caymans, where the firms manage some $282 billion in current asset value. About $103 billion of the wealth is held in Delaware-based hedge funds.

The six management companies reported that they themselves owned stakes in the hedge funds totaling approximately $38 billion. Don’t even think about trying to buy in with a few hundred thousand you may have lying around: The average minimum ante for an “accredited investor” is $5.4 million.

A quarter of the funds report greater than 50 percent ownership by non-U.S. investors (which could include offshore holding companies and other entities), and foreign investors own at least part of 41 percent of the funds. By far, most of the funds catering to these offshore entities are organized in the Cayman Islands.

In the presidential contest, hedge fund managers have played an enormous role in plumping up the coffers of several candidates’ super PACs. Sussman, for instance, who has given out more than $7 million this cycle in all, has contributed $4 million to Priorities USA Action, the group backing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Sussman and Simons combined have given Priorities $16 million in the past two cycles. (Priorities supported President Barack Obama’s second campaign for the White House before it pivoted to Clinton.)

Mercer, who socked $13 million into Keep the Promise I, one of the super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz‘s (R-Texas) recently suspended run for the White House, is the largest individual donor to super PACs so far this cycle. Griffin provided $5 million to Conservative Solutions PAC, which backed Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio‘s presidential bid before he dropped out; add in gifts from Singer, Asness and Klarman and the total jumps to $11.6 million.

These seven major hedge fund industry donors whose firms filed Form ADVs with the SEC in recent months have made $135 million in political contributions since 1989, as far back as the Center for Responsive Politics’ data go. But it’s only since 2010, when super PACs came into being in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, that the big money has really flowed.

Every firm but Renaissance has funds organized in a tax haven like the Caymans or Bermuda. But their offshore dealings don’t mean they’re engaging in tax evasion or anything similarly nefarious, says Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and an expert on tax policy. Rosenthal wrote in 2012 that while managers can benefit from organizing their investment vehicles overseas, they often do so to cater to special kinds of clients like tax-exempt entities and foreign investors.

The larger point, though — rather than any illegal or hidden activity by the hedge fund managers — remains one of a few staggeringly affluent individuals investing heavily in the political system, giving many times what the average American could imagine contributing.

Their largess, in turn, could have an impact on how the government treats the rich — especially when it comes to the tax code. Capital gains tax rates levied on investment returns, for instance, are far lower than taxes on income. Indeed “tax issues affecting hedge funds” was one of the top issues listed on Renaissance Technologies’ lobbying reports in 2015, for example. (Sussman, the Priorities USA Action donor, it should be noted, has supported closing the carried interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers’ income to be taxed at the capital gains rate.)

“The world of capital is divided between those who have it and those who don’t,” Rosenthal said. “we’re taxing capital lightly. We tax labor fully. And so I think it fuels a lot of inequality.”

“I think the problem is how we look at capital,” he said. “When you look at the size of these investments by hedge funds, it’s eye-boggling.”

Big Libya $$ in the UK, Interpol Red Notice

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Primer:

Sanctions on ODAC were lifted in 2013

Clinton Burned up the telephone lines with the Brit Counterparts

Drumheller to Blumenthal to Hillary for Business Ventures

Interpol Tripoli

There may be no associations but following the money, the organizations and the long term objectives begs certain questions.

    ODAC projects in Libya

Gaddafi insider accused of using state cash to buy luxury Scottish hotels

Libyan prosecutors ask UK officials for help in investigating claims Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba laundered proceeds of embezzlement in England and Scotland

Guardian: Scottish police are investigating claims by Libyan authorities that a powerful member of Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle used money meant for hospitals and housing to buy luxury hotels in the Highlands and a string of multimillion pound homes.

The allegations were made in confidential documents sent to Scotland’s lord advocate in a request for legal assistance by the Libyan attorney general in 2014. Extracts of these have been shown to the Guardian.

One of an elite group of Gaddafi insiders known as “companions of the leader”, Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba is suspected by Libyan prosecutors of embezzling millions from public funds during his two decades as head of the country’s major infrastructure commission.

Dabaiba may have awarded contracts worth more than £200m to companies that he ultimately controlled, Libyan prosecutors claim. They allege he then laundered the proceeds in England and Scotland. They say he may have been helped by his sons, his brother, and a group of British associates based in Dunfermline, near Edinburgh.

The Dabaiba family have dismissed the allegations as baseless. They maintain that they are not under investigation in Libya, and their lawyer claims they are “not wanted by any judicial, financial or security bodies”. Their alleged associates did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Companies the Dabaibas appear to control, according to Libyan prosecutors, have invested in at least six prestigious properties in England with a current value of more than £25m. In London these include a £16.5m flat in Mayfair, a £1m flat in Marylebone, a £7m house in Hampstead; Land Registry records also show two £1m homes in Surrey.

Dabaiba’s salary at ODAC was equivalent to just £12,000 a year. His declared earnings were not, according to Libyan prosecutors, sufficient to allow him to own these properties.

Officers from Police Scotland’s serious organised crime division are understood to be actively pursuing their own investigation. A Scottish Crown Office spokesman said: “We can confirm we have received a request for mutual legal assistance from the Libyan authorities. As this relates to an ongoing investigation it would not be appropriate to comment further.”

**** Reports have also filtered through social media that one of those arrested is Ali Dabaiba, a former Gaddafi official who is wanted by Interpol for crimes including embezzlement and abuse of office. Dabaiba, formerly in charge of the Libyan Organisation for Development of Administrative Centres, turned against the Gaddafi government and provided financial support for the 2011 uprising that eventually overthrew the former dictator.

Related reading: The Hillary Spy Network

WSJ: 2014, LONDON—Libyan authorities are seeking international help in apprehending a former senior official in Moammar Gadhafi’s government who has been under investigation for alleged crimes including embezzlement and abuse of office.

Interpol last week published a so-called Red Notice seeking Ali Dabaiba, who ran Libya’s main government-contracting office for decades during the Gadhafi era. The notice, posted on Interpol’s website, said Mr. Dabaiba is “wanted by the judicial authorities of Libya for prosecution/to serve a sentence.”

A lawyer for Mr. Dabaiba had no immediate comment. An Interpol spokeswoman said the notice was published on Thursday at the request of Libyan authorities. Officials in the office of Libya’s attorney general weren’t available to comment.

The Interpol notice says the allegations against Mr. Dabaiba, 68 years old, include embezzlement, money laundering, abuse of power and other crimes. The notice didn’t address whether Mr. Dabaiba has been criminally charged in Libya.

Interpol’s Red Notice system is designed to help law-enforcement authorities in one country get assistance from other countries to track down and apprehend suspects. Interpol’s website says that the alerts are “to seek the location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action,” and that the notices are issued “on the basis of a valid national arrest warrant.”

As Libyan authorities try to recoup tens of billions of dollars in assets they believe were looted during Gadhafi’s reign, Mr. Dabaiba’s family has been one focus, according to the investigators and documents submitted to British law-enforcement authorities. Mr. Dabaiba is on a long list of individuals whose assets are restricted in Libya pending further investigation.

Unlike some former government officials who are under investigation, Mr. Dabaiba hasn’t been subject to restrictions on him leaving the country, according to both Libya’s asset-freeze law and the Libyan attorney general’s office.

Among the Dabaiba family’s investments Libyan investigators have been scrutinizing is a 2011 investment in a posh British real-estate agency, Chesterton Humberts, according to people familiar with the investigation and a person close to the family. That investment was the focus of a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

Chesterton Humberts said on Twitter this month that the Dabaiba family “are not shareholders” and that the company has “never been approached by Libyan government or any law-enforcement agency.” The tweets didn’t address whether the Dabaiba family previously invested in Chesterton Humberts.

As recently as April, Mr. Dabaiba was living in the Libyan port city of Misrata, although he regularly left the country, said people who know him.

Libya’s audit agency said it found multiple questionable financial decisions at Libya’s Organization for Development of Administrative Centers when Mr. Dabaiba was in charge.

Supporters of Mr. Dabaiba say his family’s financial support for the 2011 revolution that ultimately overthrew Gadhafi makes up for any alleged misdeeds during his years at ODAC

Dabaiba ran the Organisation for Development of Administrative Centres (ODAC) for two decades until moving to London in 2011, the year Gaddafi was toppled and killed. During that time, ODAC spent an estimated £28bn of public money on building projects in the oil-rich state.

In his request for assistance from Scotland, the recently retired attorney general Abdulkader Radwan claimed “huge amounts of money” may have been “illegally transferred to the banks in Britain and Scotland”. His prosecutors were investigating whether Dabaiba was involved in embezzlement of public money, money laundering, “illicit gain” and abusing an official position.

The information originally came to light through the Panama Papers. A network of more than 100 companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Malta, Liechtenstein and Britain connected to the Dabaibas and their suspected associates has been identified by asset trackers appointed by the Libyan government. More than 40 of them are in Scotland.

Dabaiba’s suspected assets include the 500-year-old Kenmore hotel on the banks of the river Tay, which claims to be Scotland’s oldest inn. The Kenmore is managed by the Aurora Hotel Collection, a small but growing portfolio of boutique Scottish hotels.

Coolbillboards, which places posters on trucks for Morrisons and Homebase, is among a number of businesses in Britain which Libyan prosecutors also suspect may ultimately belong to Dabaiba.

The request for assistance states Kenmore’s controlling companies, Coolbillboards and the Aurora group “may contain assets belonging to the State of Libya”.

Aurora and Coolbillboards did not respond to requests for comment.

On the British register of company directors, Dabaiba has given as his London address an opulent five-bedroom home at Lowndes Court, a short stroll from Harrods in Knightsbridge. It was advertised for sale in 2013 at £16.5m. The flat has been owned for at least five years a BVI company called Panthino Property SA.

An estate agent photograph of the Lowndes Court apartment.
An estate agent photograph of the Lowndes Court apartment. Photograph: Zoopla

BVI regulators forwarded information to Libyan prosecutors in November 2013 which showed an individual called Ali Dabaiba of Misrata, Libya, was the beneficial owner on Panthino. The company is also listed on the Land Registry as having paid £2.9m for a period detached house in Prince Arthur Road in Hampstead in 2006. The property has a market value of £7m today.

Libyan prosecutors claim a Liechtenstein entity called Cirrus Establishment is also ultimately controlled by the family. Cirrus is a former parent company of Coolbillboards. According to the Land Registry it previously owned a plush London apartment at Dorset House, Gloucester Place, in Marylebone, which Dabaiba’s son Al gave as his address in company filings. And in 2014 the Land Registry shows Cirrus bought two large homes in Surrey valued at £1m each.

Dabaiba was also found by Libyan prosecutors to have purchased a property in an imposing terrace on the upmarket Heriot Row in Edinburgh in 1998, paying £475,000, before selling it in 2006 for more than £1m.

Radwan’s letter cited a number of suspected frauds, including alleged overpayments for building housing units.

Later in 2014 his department sent a longer 76-page dossier, compiled by a team of asset trackers including New York-based investigator Ann Marlowe on behalf of the Libyan litigation department.

The dossier also calls for help in investigating taxpayer-funded deals worth more than 437m Libyan dinars (now £225m) for consultancy work on hospital and archaeology projects in Libya, allegedly awarded in 2008 by Dabaiba to companies controlled by twin brothers Malcolm and Andrew Flinn and their associate Steven Turnbull, who operate from an office at Dunfermline.

The directors appear to have little or no experience in these sectors.

Filings show Marco Polo Storica, a Scottish company awarded two contracts for planning restoration work at ancient Greek and Roman sites along the Libyan coast, was originally wholly owned by the Flinns, whose background is in banking; Turnbull, who is a business graduate; and Walter Calesso, an Italian living in Scotland whose previous work was in interior design, according to a biography he posted on one company website. Calesso is named as the signatory for the ODAC contracts, as is Dabaiba.

The Libyan legal assistance request claims: “It is likely that Marco Polo Storica was set up … to misappropriate Libyan state funds in violation of both Libyan and Scots law” and requires investigation.

The same claim is made of Evergreen Consulting Ltd, based in Malta. Part owned by Calesso, the Flinns and Turnbull, according to the Libyan litigation department, from 2008 until 2010, Evergreen signed six contracts with ODAC for supervising construction work on a series of hospitals.

In UK company filings, Turnbull and the Flinns appear as directors and shareholders in dozens of concerns. Of these companies, 35 shared the same address: 16 Comely Park in Dunfermline.

The Libyan prosecutors claim: “In many, if not all, of these companies, they appear to be acting in some capacity on behalf of Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba.”

The Flinn brothers, Turnbull and Calesso did not respond to requests for comment.