The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy.

News / / 04.07.26

‘Eastern Libya’s Money Man’: New Investigation Exposes the Haftar Family’s Top Fixer

The Sentry’s new investigation finds Ahmed Gadalla is the linchpin of the Haftar family’s power—controlling banks, evading the UN arms embargo, distributing unauthorized dinar banknotes, and orchestrating multimillion-dollar fraud schemes to bankroll Field Marshal Haftar’s power ambitions at the expense of the Libyan public.

APRIL 7, 2025 (Washington, DC) – A major new investigation by The Sentry exposes Ahmed Gadalla, a 46-year-old businessman from Benghazi, as the most versatile financial architect serving Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his sons, who control eastern and southern Libya. The report exposes how Gadalla’s influence is symptomatic of Libya’s systemically weak economy and governance which allow actors like Gadalla to thrive. Gadalla’s simultaneous involvement in banking, arms smuggling, the printing of unauthorized dinar banknotes, letter-of-credit fraud, and transnational military procurement makes him perhaps the most emblematic illicit actor in Libya today, enabling powerful state figures to loot the nation’s wealth.

Drawing on numerous interviews, research, and analysis of documents, the new report reveals how Gadalla, operating under the armed protection of Haftar’s son, Saddam Haftar, has inserted himself into virtually every layer of eastern Libya’s economy. Gadalla exerts de facto control over three major Libyan banks, using them to commit fraudulent schemes and launder ill-gotten profits. He has overseen the printing of billions in unauthorized 50-dinar banknotes in Russia, a scheme so damaging that the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) was forced to retire all 50-dinar banknotes in April 2025.

Beyond banking, Gadalla holds a 60% stake in Ozon, a newly created private telecom company that challenged Tripoli’s regulators on behalf of the Haftar family. Gadalla also chairs a state-owned steel company while running a constellation of private firms in Dubai, Malta, and the UK. Moreover, he serves as the Haftar family’s go-to architect for importing weapons in apparent violation of the UN arms embargo. The new report documents three recent arms-smuggling episodes tied to Gadalla: the July 2025 interception off Greece of a container ship ferrying roughly 200 military vehicles from the UAE to Benghazi for onward delivery to Sudan; a $1 billion-plus scheme to supply eastern Libya with Chinese combat drones—some of which were intercepted in Italy in June 2024; and about $16 million in drone equipment seized by Spanish and French police the prior year.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

In one of the world’s richest oil-producing countries, ordinary citizens bear the cost of this level of corruption. The immense amounts of public money diverted through schemes like Gadalla’s siphon the hard currency the CBL needs for essential imports, exacerbate the dinar’s depreciation, and undermine the integrity of the country’s banking system.

Justyna Gudzowska, Executive Director of The Sentry, said: “Ahmed Gadalla helps the Haftar family turn military force into cash and cash into weapons. He helped bankroll a devastating assault on Tripoli with Libyan public funds, participated in flooding the economy with unauthorized dinar banknotes, and orchestrated arms shipments that appear to defy international law—all without facing a single consequence. For ordinary Libyans to ever see the benefits of their country’s wealth, such impunity must end.”

Oliver Windridge, Senior Advisor for UK and EU at The Sentry, said: “Gadalla might be prolific, but he’s not an outlier. He represents an entire class of enablers who do the dirty work for Libya’s warlords—laundering money, smuggling arms, subverting local banks—while hiding behind political protection and armed cover. Issuing international sanctions now against Gadalla and his network would send a clear message that the international community is willing to go beyond the warlords themselves and dismantle the illicit financial flows that sustain them.”

Key Report Insights:

The Sentry’s findings tie Gadalla to three high-profile arms smuggling episodes since 2023. In each case, Gadalla played a role in arranging the logistics, the financing, or both. To date, he has faced no consequences.

  • The July 2025 interception off Greece of the Aya 1, a container ship controlled by Gadalla, which was carrying ammunition and some 200 military vehicles from the UAE to Benghazi—cargo ultimately intended for the Rapid Support Forces, a leading combatant in Sudan’s brutal civil war.
  • A major scheme to acquire Chinese FL-1 combat drones, disguised as wind turbines and funded through the National Oil Corporation, which were intercepted in southern Italy in June 2024 preceded by related arrests in Canada and the United States
  • A failed procurement of Spanish military drones and equipment worth 14 million euros, seized by Spain’s Guardia Civil and French police in late 2023.

This transnational approach traces back to Gadalla’s first pro-Haftar scheme in 2019, which continues to impact the Libyan population seven years later:

  • The Sentry’s investigation reveals that Gadalla used utilized Emirati companies to borrow $300 million from Abu Dhabi’s al-Masraf bank, backed by a guarantee deposit from the Libyan Foreign Bank—public money from Tripoli—to help finance Haftar’s April 2019 offensive on Tripoli. The military operation, which involved payments to Russian combatants from the Wagner Group, failed after 14 months of destruction. And the loans were never fully repaid, leaving the Libyan public holding the bill for an attack on their own capital.
  • Meanwhile, Gadalla lives lavishly. He carries a St. Kitts passport, flies on a private jet, and owns a $3.7 million condominium in one of Toronto’s most exclusive neighborhoods. He maintains permanent residency in Canada.
  • That an obscure Libyan fixer—not a warlord or a politician—has managed to accumulate such vast wealth and responsibilities, is itself a measure of how deeply the system is broken. The contrast with the daily economic hardship endured by most Libyans is stark.

Key recommendations in the report:

  • The report recommends that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union impose targeted sanctions on Ahmed Gadalla, his companies, and his associates under their respective Global Magnitsky-style regimes.
  • The report further calls on the UAE to order domestic firms to sever ties with Gadalla and to investigate al-Masraf bank’s role in his operations, including the diversion of $300 million in Libyan public funds in 2019.
  • The report also urges the shareholders of al-Masraf bank—Libya, the UAE, and Algeria—to launch an independent investigation into the bank’s transactions with Gadalla-linked entities and to remove politically exposed persons from positions of authority at the institution.

Read the full investigative report: https://thesentry.org/reports/eastern-libyas-top-money-man/

For media inquiries, please contact: Kria Sakakeeny, Director of Communications, [email protected]

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About The Sentry: The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Our investigations follow the money as it is laundered from war zones to financial centers around the world. We provide evidence and strategies for governments, banks, and law enforcement to hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account. These efforts provide new leverage for human rights, peace, and anti-corruption efforts. Learn more at: https://TheSentry.org