A CARGO of cash worth $29 billion waiting for six years at a Moscow airport could be the secret fortune of Saddam Hussein, it has been claimed.

An intelligence officer told a Russian newspaper that the money could belong to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator from 1979 to 2003.

However they questioned why it had arrived at Sheremetyevo airport in 2007 — four years after Saddam Hussein was toppled and after he had been executed in December 2006.

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The cash mountain, which is made up of 100 euro notes, was flown to Moscow from Frankfurt in August 2007 and has remained there since.

Russian customs officials have asked that the rightful owner of the money, which is being stored securely at a cargo depot inside 200 wooden pallets, come forward and “present himself”.

Several bogus attempts have been made to claim the cash by criminals, Chechen groups and Ukrainian gangsters.

However no one has so far managed to convince the authorities that they are the rightful recipient of the fortune. A security source said the money could have been sent by “a wicked dictator, corrupt senior officials, or a huge mafia operation”.

They added: “We may never know to whom it belongs.”

Originally published as $29B cash left at airport since 2007