US fugitive Vesco reported dead

Fugitive US millionaire Robert Vesco died last November in Cuba of lung cancer at 72, the New York Times newspaper has reported.

Vesco fled America after being accused of embezzling $220m (£111m) by the US securities and exchange commission in the 1970s.

Vesco had been in prison in Havana on an unrelated fraud charge but was released in 2005.

There has been no confirmation by the Cuban or US authorities of his death.

Records at Colon Cemetery in Havana indicate that a Robert Vesco was buried there on 24 November 2007, the New York Times reports.

It says it has seen photos showing a group of people attending his burial, and says that, according to friends, Vesco was buried in an unmarked grave.

However, there is also speculation that Vesco may have orchestrated a fake death, according to Arthur Herzog, an author who interviewed Vesco in Cuba for a biography.

"He could have died but Bob has used disguises in the past," the author told the New York Times.

Vesco, who was a millionaire by the age of 30, fled from the US to Costa Rica in 1971, accused of defrauding investors, as well as drug-trafficking and political bribery.

He later settled in Havana, and spent almost a decade in prison for fraud after reportedly double-crossing Fidel Castro's relatives in a bogus scheme to produce a wonder drug that would supposedly cure cancer and Aids.

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