Vesco: From Wall Street to Castro's Cuba The Rise, Fall, and Exile of the King of White Collar Crime [Paperback]

Arthur Herzog III (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 2003

Today's high-flying, high-rolling conglomarateurs and corporate raiders are a tame lot compared to their immediate predecessors. The most notorious of these is Robert Vesco, the Kingfish himself, who in 1973 fled the United States accused of looting $250 million from Investors Overseas Services. Now, in this riveting account, noted author Arthur Herzog tells the astounding story of this high school dropout from Detroit, who parlayed cunning, ambition, a brilliant mind, and above all, other people's gullibility and money into a vast financial empire.Vesco's was a different kind of white collar crime. Indeed, there are many today who think he is not a criminal at alljust a victim of the SEC ("See Everything Crooked"). Working narrowly within the system, Vesco joined together smaller companies to form ever larger ones; then, driving up the price of stocks, he attracted investors by the thousands worldwide. When, at last, the dream fell apart, he got out before being thrown in jail. What followed was a desperate escapeand an equally desperate chase by the FBI, CIA, and SECto the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and finally Havana, Cuba, where Vesco now lives under the protection of Fidel Castro.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Herzog's brilliantly researched story should win honors as one of the year's remarkable biographies. He exposes the amoral brutalities of Wall Street and corporate finagling in this era of mergers, takeovers and junk bonds. He traces the career of legendary Robert Vesco from his youthful formation of an airplane-parts company, ICC, and gimmicky exploitation of his growing "big money" reputation through banks in the Bahamas and the Caymans to his big couptaking control of Bernie Cornfield's multi-million dollar Investors Overseas Service at the beginning of the 1970s. By 1973, when the SEC went after him, Vesco had taken flight with some $240-million of IOS funds. His zig-zag life as a fugitive involved sojourns and escapes from the Bahmas and Costa Rica, and Herzog's scenario scarcely misses a beat right up to the remarkable last pagesHerzog's ultimate catching up with a nearlybroken Vesco in Cuba, where he now lives. Herzog is the author of 10 novels and four works of nonfiction.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A biography of fugitive financier Robert Vesco, whose business deals in the 1960s and 70s came under Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and prosecution and made front-page news. This intriguing story of international high finance includes the period of Robert A. Hutchison's 1974 Vesco biography; but Herzog has the advantage of covering the interesting post-1974 period when Vesco unsuccessfully sought asylum in Central America and avoided extradition to the United States. (He is alive and well inof all placesCuba.) Vesco is a good public library acquisition; it can stand next to the biography of another Detroiter, venturist, and opportunist, Ivan Boesky. Arthur J. Lieb, Library of Congress
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595272096
• ISBN-13: 978-0595272099
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,738,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only game in town, September 17, 2004

By 

Susan Kappelstein "Everybody is somebody." (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vesco (Hardcover)

The book is about as good as any book could be, given the secrecy in which its main subject operated. It never gives the reader any clarity about why Vesco committed the crimes that made him famous (he could have made just about as much money legally, and would not have ended up in jail in Cuba as a result.) But in a case where little is known about what precisely happened, it is unfair to expect Herzog to explain why it happened. Anyway, this is the only book on Mr. Vesco that discusses his later career, and it sorely deserves an update. Required reading for any scholars of 1970s finance or Wall Street scandals.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VESCO book is Real-Life Suspense Thriller, August 29, 2004

By 

Jody Mondo "jodymond2" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vesco (Hardcover)

VESCO:FROM WALL STREET TO CASTRO'S CUBA by Arthur Herzog is a riveting study of while-collar criminal, Robert Vesco, accused by the Securities Exchange Commission of looting Bernard Cornfeld's Investor's Overseas Service (IOS) of 425 million in 1986. Vesco fled the USA before he was brought to trial, presumably, taking the money with him. The ingredients of "game playing", secretiveness, manipulation, bravado, and a "slippery streak" mixed with a more than usual dose of greed and chutzpah is the foundation of the Vesco legend.
Herzog looks at his ambitious childhood in Detroit, his early marriage at seventeen, and his knack of losing jobs. After awhile Vesco decides to start his own businesses, ultimately creating wealthy conglomerates. But Vesco did not work alone; he sought out and persuaded powerful, wealthy men to join him in his various get-rich schemes. After he left the country, he still had a line to the best attorneys to represent him and to powerful politicians to protect him, as he hop-scotched around the Caribbean--Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Antigua, and eventually Castro's Cuba. It is here that Herzog catches up with the fugitive financier and gets the first interview ever with him. Ironically, Herzog's last question, "Bob, was it all worth it?" is left unanswered as Vesco scurries away.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well done!, June 29, 2008

By 

Patricia Eisenhauer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vesco: From Wall Street to Castro's Cuba The Rise, Fall, and Exile of the King of White Collar Crime (Paperback)

Beyond the obvious research the author has done on the subject; he has painted a picture of one of those men in history who lived a colorful life at possibly the wong time. In today's world Robert Vesco would probably be a hero.