Three and a half years after Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi fled into exile, the country has only managed to recover a small fraction of the money that people associated with his regime are alleged to have stolen and embezelled during its years in power.

In April 2013, UN envoy Ali Ben Fetais al-Marri presented the Tunis authorities with a cheque for $28.8m – funds seized from a Lebanese bank account in Trabelsi’s name. And this year Switzerland began to transfer $40m that it had frozen in accounts held by regime associates.

Other assets recovered or sold include a yacht in Italy, Falcon and Challenger executive jets, and a house in Canada, the latter formerly belonging to Ben Ali’s daughter Nesrine and her husband Sakhr el-Materi.

Of course, these recoveries are welcome for Tunisia’s government as it tries to rebuild national finances and public services after years of instability and economic slowdown.

But in scale, they are marginal when measured against the total wealth thought to have been accumulated by Ben Ali, his associates and the family of his wife.

Missing billions

Estimates range from $5bn to $17bn, and even $50bn, with some suggestions that various members of the Trabelsi family alone may have garnered a combined $12bn.

When the former president fled the country during the January 2011 revolution, he was even rumoured to have taken substantial amounts of gold with him on the plane that carried him into exile.

Yet, while billions of dollars of stolen assets remain hidden around the world, the present government has had to embark on a major domestic and international borrowing exercise to finance development programmes.

Towards the end of this year, Tunisia is scheduled to hold its first presidential and legislative elections under the new democratic constitution – and the new leadership its citizens choose will find themselves faced with continuing budget pressures, even if longer-term economic prospects are more encouraging. Inland provincial areas, in particular, face serious social problems, while youth unemployment remains a challenge countrywide.

It is in this tough context that many Tunisians feel deeply resentful that the Ben Ali-Trabelsi clan seems to have hidden such huge wealth outside the country.

Indeed, non-governmental campaigners have been stepping up pressure on the government to more actively pursue the hunt for the assets of the former regime and its associates.

Worldwide hunt

These are thought to be widely scattered. The main countries still believed to harbour Ben Ali-Trabelsi assets are Argentina, France, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UK, the UAE and perhaps Mexico.

But confirming exactly what is held and in which places is difficult because funds are often held in numbered bank accounts, under alternative names, invested in real estate or other businesses, or concealed behind front companies.

Stephen Baker, a Jersey-based lawyer who is a leading specialist in the international recovery of stolen assets associated with regimes, told MEED how assets can be traced, although this can prove very difficult.

“There are a number of ways of uncovering where the assets are. Informants, such as disaffected colleagues or mistresses, can be extremely important,” he says. “Also, sometimes property can be traced out of the treasury or relevant accounts into offshore accounts.”

He cites the example of funds stolen by the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, which flowed into banks in Nigeria, London, Jersey and Switzerland, and could be followed into investments, as well as along other traceable routes.

Sometimes the movement of money can be identified through the Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) banks are now required to send to regulators in many countries.

Gathering evidence

Another key part of the jigsaw is gathering evidence to show how wealth was acquired and then invested.

“Money earned by legitimate business can be properly and easily accounted for,” says Baker. “If there are funds paid into bank accounts many thousands of miles from the victim state, then obvious questions arise. One problem is that countries are looking for answers in the wrong place.”

However, much depends on whether a new government is genuinely determined to find stolen assets and seeks the right specialist help.

“The biggest problem is frequently that members of outgoing government continue to hold considerable influence over key personnel be they in the judiciary, civil service or business community,” says Baker.

“Also, often there is not a genuine political will to deal with theft and also a lack of expertise. Without political will and instructing genuine experts, recovery efforts run into the ground.

“Incoming governments need to quickly instruct an expert lawyer who will gather the evidence and seek recovery. Very few do this because they do not realise they need to. So a big problem is a lack of understanding of what is needed.

“Wherever you litigate you have to be in it for the long haul. These cases rarely take less than a decade. They take too long. The reason is that there has to be an investigation, evidence gathered, a case pleaded then a trial and appeals. In my experience, many victim states just take the position that it is obvious that theft has occurred and do very little to actually prove it.”

Campaigner’s frustration

Certainly, Tunisian campaigners feel that the succession of post-revolutionary governments has failed to tackle the issue with sufficient political will and professionalism. To maintain pressure on the authorities, the non-governmental organisations Transparency International and I Watch Tunisia staged a conference in Tunis in June.

Ali Salah Ben Hadid, a lawyer who launched a legal campaign to recover the assets, has complained about a lack of experience and poor coordination between the central bank and other arms of government.

Ben Hadid says clearer leadership is needed, together with a stronger specialist legal team, to ensure Tunisia is able to provide the information and documentation required by authorities in countries where assets may be found.

However, much also depends on foreign governments’ willingness to cooperate – which is far from guaranteed.

“The attitude varies,” says Baker. “Switzerland and Jersey are genuinely very good. Many other jurisdictions pay only lip service to cooperation. The US is pretty good too, but the UK, for instance, has a very poor record, though there are signs of life and a willingness to do more.”

In the early aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, the EU froze the assets of Ben Ali and 47 other individuals suspected of involvement in the illicit diversion of assets. In November 2012, the EU announced it would return stolen assets to the government, once legal requirements were fulfilled.

Unhelpful governments

In France, the administration of President Nicolas Sarkozy was slow to act, but his successor François Hollande adopted a much more proactive approach and also offered to help trace assets that might be in other countries.

Switzerland has worked closely with the Tunis authorities to identify and freeze $60m, and by June this year about $40m was already being returned.

But in Lebanon, despite the earlier remittance of $28.8m, procedural failures delayed attempts to recover further funds in May. The Court of Cassation in Beirut complained about shortcomings in Tunisian paperwork and held back the release of money from a Lebanese-Canadian bank account belonging to Leila Trabelsi and frozen in 2011.

Tunisian experts believe substantial Ben Ali-Trabelsi assets may be held in the Gulf states, in bank accounts and real estate. However, there has been little sign of progress in making any recoveries from these countries.