Vesco had secured control of Captive Seal, a valve manufacturer in Fairfield, New Jersey, and placed its assets and liabilities into the newly formed company.
[3] In 1970, Vesco began a takeover bid for Investors Overseas Service (IOS), a mutual fund investment firm run by Bernard Cornfield.
Vesco wanted Richard Nixon's Attorney General John N. Mitchell to intercede on his behalf with SEC chairman William J. Casey, and in April 1972 he sent his counsel, former New Jersey State Senator Harry L. Sears, along with ICC president Lawrence Richardson, to deliver a cash contribution of $200,000 to Maurice Stans, finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President.
The secret payment, made shortly after the enactment of financial disclosure laws under the Federal Election Campaign Act, was revealed in a pretrial deposition in February 1973.
[4] With criminal charges pending from the SEC investigation, Vesco fled to Costa Rica in February 1973, accused of stealing $224 million from IOS investments.
He sought to maintain control over his 26 percent share of the company, but facing multiple indictments for securities fraud, he never returned to the United States, dying in Havana, Cuba in 2007.