US troops have taken Saddam Hussein's finance minister into custody, saying they hoped he could shed light on billions of dollars the ousted leader and his government may have stashed overseas.
Iraqi police captured Mr Hikmat Ibrahim al-Azzawi - also a deputy prime minister and number 45 on an American list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis - and handed him to US Marines, Major Randi Steffy said at Central Command in Qatar.
"As the deputy prime minister for finance and economics he could have information on the locations of money that belongs to the Iraqi people," said Captain Stewart Upton, another spokesman at Central Command.
"He's a deputy prime minister. That in and of itself says that he has knowledge of the inner workings and the command structure of the regime," he said.
Saddam is thought to have amassed a fortune of between $2 and $24 billion over his 24-year rule, which analysts say is likely hidden in an intricate web of frontmen, shell companies and offshore accounts around the world.
Washington has asked Switzerland, home to a third of the world's offshore wealth, and other states to freeze assets belonging to Saddam and his government.
But Switzerland says there is no evidence that Saddam held cash in Swiss accounts. And analysts say the money will be almost impossible to trace without the help of informers from Saddam's inner circle. US officials are also questioning Saddam's half brother, Mr Barzan al-Tikriti - another of the 55 most wanted now in custody - who could provide valuable information on the hidden money, according to sources who knew him well.
Mr Barzan ran the Iraqi intelligence service from 1979 to 1983, served as Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1997 and was reputedly Saddam's banker in the West.
US private investigator Kroll Associates, hired by Kuwait after the last Gulf War to trace Saddam's wealth, found much of it was hidden in private numbered accounts in Europe and the Middle East.
He also had investments in major European firms. As finance minister, Azzawi was a key figure in Iraq's efforts to bust UN economic sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by signing a string of trade agreements in recent years.