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Mexico Says It Blocked Plot To Smuggle Gadhafi's Son Into Country

Saadi Gadhafi at January 2010 news conference in Tripoli.
Mahmud Turkia
/
AFP/Getty Images
Saadi Gadhafi at January 2010 news conference in Tripoli.

A report in Canada's National Post that former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's "playboy son Saadi made plans to flee to a Mexican beach resort whose celebrity visitors include Kim Kardashian, Charlie Sheen and Lady Gaga," has prompted Mexico's interior secretary to say today that his country's intelligence service has broken up the plot, The Associated Press says.

According to the AP:

"Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire says the plan involved a criminal ring 'of international dimensions,' but it was quashed in September before it could be carried out. The son is named al-Saadi Gadhafi, and he is living under house arrest in the Western African country of Niger."

The National Post reported that Saadi Gadhafi was trying to get to a "multi-million-dollar refuge [that] awaited him in Punta Mita." It says that "to get him there, a Canadian company, Can/Aust Security and Investigations International, approached private security contractors in Ontario, offering $1,000-a-day to join the team that would pick up the 38-year-old Gaddafi and fly him, his wife and children out of Libya."

Can/Aust CEO Gary Peters told the newspaper of the plan, which he apparently thought Mexican authorities would approve. Instead, The National Post says, "a Canadian consultant who traveled to Libya in July with Mr. Peters was arrested in Mexico City last month."

Saadi Gadhafi and other members of his family have been subject to a U.N. travel ban — and in March Interpol alerted its members that the Gadhafis were part of an "Orange Notice" that tells nations they should assist in enforcing that travel ban. Mexico is an Interpol member.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.