Fugitive Robert Vesco May
Have Died In Cuba
Robert L. Vesco, the
fugitive financier who
spent most of his life
eluding American
justice, might even have
managed to die on the
sly, the New York Times
reported.
Mr. Vesco, who was
sentenced to a long
prison term in Cuba in
1996 and was wanted in
the United States for
crimes ranging from
securities fraud and
drug trafficking to
political bribery, died
more than five months
ago, on Nov. 23, from
lung cancer, say people
close to him. If so, it
was never reported
publicly by the Cuban
authorities, who said
Friday that they
considered him a “nonissue.”
American officials said
Friday they knew nothing
about his death.
Mr. Vesco last made the
news a decade ago when
he was sentenced to
prison in Cuba. He
emerged in recent years
and lived a quiet life
in Havana until he
contracted lung cancer.
Records at Colón
Cemetery in Havana
indicate that a Robert
Vesco was buried there
on Nov. 24, and
photographs and videos
viewed by The New York
Times show a man
resembling him in a
casket with his longtime
Cuban companion looking
over him.
His associates and
protectors included
democratically elected
presidents in Costa
Rica, the left-wing
Sandinistas in
Nicaragua, the cocaine
barons of Colombia, the
terrorism-tainted
government in Libya,
and, finally, the
Communist government of
Fidel Castro.
Whereas the American
government considered
Mr. Vesco to be an
American fugitive, he
had apparently somehow
gained Italian
citizenship. A friend
provided a copy of an
Italian passport issued
in 2006 that bore Mr.
Vesco’s name and
photograph.
After numerous
complaints, the United
States Securities and
Exchange Commission
carried out an
investigation. In 1972,
the commission charged
Mr. Vesco and others in
a civil suit with
stealing more than $224
million.
But Mr. Vesco had
already fled, first to
the Bahamas and then to
Costa Rica. There, he
established a close
friendship with
President José Figueres,
plowing some $11 million
into his adopted
country.
“I wish more Vescos
would come to Costa Rica
— we need them,” said
Mr. Figueres on
television in response
to criticism that he was
harboring a criminal.
Mr. Vesco also
befriended Donald A.
Nixon Jr., a nephew of
President Richard M.
Nixon, and gave $200,000
to the Nixon campaign,
apparently hoping the
president would help
quash the investigation
against him.
It was to no avail. But
to the frustration of
the F.B.I. Mr. Vesco
remained tantalizingly
out of reach in Costa
Rica, where he passed
himself off as a
progressive dairy and
cattle rancher, and an
investor in high-tech
projects.
Eventually, one of his
high-tech brainstorms —
a factory to make
machine guns, which
included President
Figueres’s son as a
partner — became his
undoing.
A public and political
outcry ensued, and by
1978 he was forced to
leave for the Bahamas,
the beginning of years
of hopscotching that
included stops in
Antigua and Nicaragua,
before Cuba finally
accepted him for
“humanitarian” reasons.
“We don’t care what he
did in the United
States,” Fidel Castro
said. “We’re not
interested in the money
he has.”
Mr. Vesco eventually ran
afoul of the Castro
government with a scheme
to produce a wonder drug
that supposedly cured
cancer, AIDS, arthritis
and even the common
cold. He was accused of
defrauding a state-run
biotechnology laboratory
run by Fidel Castro’s
nephew, Antonio Fraga
Castro, and sentenced to
13 years. After serving
most of his time in a
private cell in a large
prison in eastern Cuba,
Mr. Vesco was quietly
released in 2005 and
lived so simply in
recent years in Havana
that a friend said he
did not know what had
happened to his fortune. |
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