Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise
A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.
The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.
Sentry calls for a western-backed investigation into the Libyan oil officials known to be at the heart of the fuel-smuggling enterprise and for international help to ensure Libya’s own investigative bodies identify those who have stolen funds from the Libyan people.
Fuel smuggling has been a long-standing problem in Libya, but the report claims the sums involved rose sharply after 2022 after a change to the leadership of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), one of the few state bodies that spans the east-west divisions that have effectively created two governments since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
