Robert Lee Vesco was an American criminal financier.
18 Facts About Robert Vesco
1.
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Robert Vesco immediately fled the ensuing US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by living in a number of Central American and Caribbean countries.
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Robert Vesco was notorious throughout his life, attempting to buy a Caribbean island from Antigua to create an autonomous country and having a national law in Costa Rica made to protect him from extradition.
4.
Robert Vesco was born in Detroit, Michigan, where he grew up and attended, and then quit, Cass Technical High School.
5.
Robert Vesco quit engineering school during his early twenties to work for an investment company.
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In 1970, Robert Vesco began a successful takeover bid for Investors Overseas Service, Ltd.
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Robert Vesco saw his chance and began a protracted battle to assume control of the company, opposed by Cornfeld and others.
8.
Cornfeld was jailed in Switzerland and Robert Vesco was accused of looting the company of hundreds of millions of dollars.
9.
Robert Vesco would continue to wage a legal battle from Costa Rica and the Bahamas to try to maintain control of his 26 percent of ICC stock, but, with five outstanding indictments for securities fraud against him, he could not return to the United States.
10.
Shortly before his departure, hoping to end the SEC investigation into his activities, Vesco routed substantial contributions to Richard Nixon through Nixon's nephew Donald A Nixon.
11.
Robert Vesco was investigated for a secret $200,000 contribution made to the 1972 campaign to re-elect Nixon.
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Robert Vesco lived in Nicaragua for a while, while the Sandinista government was in power.
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Robert Vesco introduced Nixon to Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul Castro, and the Cuban government agreed to provide laboratory facilities and doctors to conduct the trials.
14.
In Cuba, Robert Vesco joined forces with rogue former CIA operative Frank Terpil, and they offered their network of contacts to the Cuban government.
15.
On or about May 31,1995, Robert Vesco attempted to defraud Nixon and Raul Castro, and Cuban authorities seized control of the project and arrested Robert Vesco, his wife, and Terpil.
16.
Robert Vesco was scheduled for release during 2009, when he would have been 74 years old.
17.
Robert Vesco reportedly died of lung cancer in November 2007 and was buried at Colon Cemetery in Havana.
18.
The fictionalized Robert Vesco is shown to have faked his own death in Cuba in 2007 and to be in pursuit of a legendary shipwreck from the Spanish treasure fleet.