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Robert Vesco, one of the great financial swindlers, is dead. Given that it's Vesco, I guess I should say that he's allegedly dead. It's takes a real genius to flee to Cuba. Then get arrested in Cuba for double-crossing Castro.

If Mr. Vesco indeed eluded the American authorities until his final day, it was the fitting end to his nearly four decades on the run. He was wanted for, among other things, bilking some $200 million from credulous investors in the 1970s, making an illegal contribution to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign and trying to arrange a deal during the Carter administration to let Libya buy American planes in exchange for bribes to United States officials.

Mr. Vesco last made the news a decade ago when he was sentenced to prison in Cuba, where he had taken sanctuary, for a financial scheme. He emerged in recent years and lived a quiet life in Havana until he contracted lung cancer. After about a week in a hospital, friends say, he died and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Given the controversial nature of the man, none of his friends dared be identified for fear of running afoul of the Cuban authorities. While word of Mr. Vesco’s death could be the final ruse of a 72-year-old modern-day buccaneer who had every reason to drop off the radar, it would have to be an elaborate one.

Posted by edelfenbein at May 5, 2008 11:57 AM