Disgraced business figure Robert Vesco

After many years on the lam from U.S. law enforcement, financier Robert Vesco died of lung cancer in 2007 in Havana, Cuba.

Vesco's storied wealth began with his International Controls Corporation in New Jersey. Then in 1970, he took over a mutual fund family, Investors Overseas Service, Ltd., which he then looted.

The Securties and Exchange Commission charged Vesco with defrauding that company of more than $200 million, and rather than face the charges, he rapidly relocated in 1973 to Costa Rica, where he dispensed enough payoff money to prevent his being extradited to America.

In 1978, he moved to Nassau and next to Antigua. He hoped to purchase the island of Barbuda from Antigua and declare it his own sovereign state, but that plan failed.

Next he lived in Nicaragua, and in 1982, he moved to Cuba. There he was charged with drug smuggling, and when Vesco attempted to put one over on Raul Castro in a business deal involving the medicine Trixolan, Vesco was arrested. He was found guilty in a Cuban court and sentenced to a prison term in 1996.

Vesco was scheduled to be released in 2009, but death overtook him at age 71.