by Rod Hughes

A brief news story published by the Associated Press today confirms the unheralded death in Cuba five months ago of once-infamous financier Robert Vesco. From 1972 to 1978, the controversial Vesco kept the political scene in Costa Rica in a turmoil and made the country synonymous with “refuge from the law.”

The Vesco saga began when he took over International Overseas Services, an international, Swiss-based investment company, from founder Bernard Cornfeld. Promising that he would get the troubled company reorganized and on track, he allegedly stripped the subsidiary companies, selling their assets and absconded with a fortune estimated at $220 million.

Sought by both French investors and the U.S. Justice Dept., Vesco was invited into Costa Rica by then-President Jose Figueres who managed to push through a law prohibiting extradition to the United States of fugitive lawbreakers. The so-called Vesco law was repealed after Vesco left the country upon the election of President Rodrigo Carazo who had made Vesco a dominant campaign issue by promising to expell the fugitive.

Vesco did not maintain a low profile and granted interviews freely to La Nacion, the country’s leading daily and a foe of the fugitive’s sojourn here. The Tico Times had several interviews in which he blandly parried the probing questions of reporter Steve Schmidt. During that decade a book on Vesco entitled “Vesco Buys Himself a Little Republic” came out and one syndicated editorial cartoonist suggested that a fine tax shelter might be “a bungalow in Costa Rica.”

Figueres’ successor in the presidency, Daniel Oduber, did his best to honor his predecessor’s promises to Vesco but finally asked for Vesco to leave. No date was set and it took Carazo’s election to finally cause his departure to the Caribbean and finally to Cuba, where Fidel Castro welcomed him with open arms. This turned into open hands and it is thought that when the Communist dictator had drained what was left of Vesco’s wealth, Castro tired of him.

Whatever the situation, Cuban authorities arrested Vesco on murky charges and threw him in prison where he sank out of public sight. Cuban authorities limited themselves to record that Vesco died Nov. 23, 2007, of lung cancer and was buried in a modest subterranean vault of gray and black granite the day after. He was nearing his 72nd birthday.