It remains unclear why Western governments are so reluctant to return ill-gotten funds to governments that badly need money for social and economic development.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies exploring their geopolitical options with China has a dimension that the Washington debate has neglected: the kings, dictators, and their relatives across the world have accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars through the “privatization” of national budgets and/or what is known as “state capture,” where public service becomes the most profitable kind of business.
In the 1990s, authoritarian rulers like Presidents Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire or Suharto of Indonesia were accused of stealing not less than $5 billion and $20 billion respectively, sums that were never recovered. In the Mobutu case, Swiss authorities found only several million dollars in accounts that were returned to Mobutu’s family in 2009, while Suharto’s family was ordered to repay just $324 million more than fifteen years after he abdicated from the presidency.
