OFF TOPIC RE: VESCO yep, this is our man...
Twenty years ago, Robert Vesco was known as the biggest swindler of the
twentieth century. But then he lost his title. Deregulated corporate raiders
began trickling down on the little guy, and greed was soon considered macho
on Wall Street. Vesco's mistake is that he was ahead of his time. Because of
this he became a wanted man, at which point he figured he might as well get
into drug smuggling. This book is mainly about Investors Overseas Services,
a huge Swiss-based mutual fund empire founded by Bernard Cornfeld and
looted by Vesco. The author, who knew Cornfeld personally, describes the
off-shore, corporate-shell shenanigans used by Vesco in mind-numbing detail.
The best parts of the book depict Cornfeld's playboy lifestyle, the Nixon-
Vesco connection, and how Vesco bought the president of Costa Rica.
After this book was published, Vesco moved to the Bahamas in search of
a better political climate. He aligned himself with prime minister Lynden
Pindling, and then with drug smuggler Carlos Lehder. By 1981 he had outlived
his welcome in the Bahamas, and in 1983 moved to Cuba. Most observers assume
that Castro tolerated the Vesco-Lehder connection for a price. Lehder was
eventually extradited to the U.S. from Colombia, and is currently serving a
life sentence in Florida. In 1995, Cuba announced that Vesco had been placed
under house arrest, but the reasons behind the arrest remain unclear.
pir.org
-Brian |
