Governments and international banks should seize Hosni Mubarak's assets and hold them in escrow to be returned to the people of Egypt, an international corruption watchdog said Friday.
"What is happening in Egypt today shows there is a major problem with a lack of transparency," said Huguette Labelle, the chair of Transparency International, an influential international corruption watchdog with ties to the UN.
After 18 days of protests, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down on Friday, although his exact location remains unknown. His wife and sons are rumoured to have long since fled the North African nation.
His financial assets are believed to be spread across the globe, and as the motions to replace him in a democratic Egypt lurch into action, so too has the international movement to retrieve any financial assets he may have absconded with.
"When there is a dictator who appears to have acquired much more wealth than he would warrant as a salary of a head of a corporation or country, they should investigate immediately because you don't know where those assets are parked," Labelle said.
Labelle spent 19 years in deputy ministerial positions in the Canadian civil service across a variety of departments before chairing the international lobby group in 2005. She is also chancellor of the University of Ottawa and is a Companion to the Order of Canada.
She spent seven years presiding over CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, and now calls for international governments and banking institutions to investigate Mubarak's assets and seize any illegitimate funds.
"If there is any evidence of illicit transfers, then you put this money in escrow," she told CBC News on Friday. "It's the people's money. It should return to the people assuming there is a government that will look after it."
Reports this week estimated that Mubarak's family wealth could be in excess of $40 billion — a figure that would put him just behind Berkshire Hathaway head Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu, the world's richest man.
Those figures were based on numerous estimates, as finding an exact figure of how many funds the deposed leader could even theoretically have access to is as yet unknown. But it's estimated that 40 per cent of Egypt's 80 million people live on less than $2 a day.
A report by think tank Global Financial Integrity released in January found that Egypt is losing more than $6 billion US a year — more than $57.2 billion US between 2000 and 2008 — to illicit financial activities and official government corruption.
Seize Mubarak's money
