MIAMI -- The five children of elusive millionaire fugitive Robert Vesco have been warned they may be the targets of a kidnap plot.
The FBI alerted Daniel Vesco, 26, that it had received intelligence on a plan to kidnap him, his sister or one of his three brothers.
Daniel Vesco told the Miami Herald that special agent James Brennan advised him Friday to 'take precautions to protect' his family. He said Brennan was not sure if the warning applied to his children or to other members of the immediate family of the financier, who has been wanted for a decade in this country on fraud charges and is believed to be hiding in the Caribbean.
'The FBI contacted Mr. (Daniel) Vesco directly and he suggested I contact the FBI, which I did,' said Marshall Burack, the younger Vesco's Miami attorney. 'Yes, I do take this serously and I know Mr. Vesco takes it quite serously also.'
Burack said the FBI's Atlanta office was tipped that one of Vesco's five children might be kidnapped, and that they should take precautions. Officials in both the Atlanta and Miami FBI offices refused to comment.
The Herald reported government sources had dispelled suspicion that it might be an FBI ploy to flush Vesco from hiding. Less than two years ago, the FBI attempted to abduct Vesco, 46, from his Bahamian hideaway.
No one would speculate on a motive for any kidnapping. At this point, few people seem to know where the elder Vesco is and those who do aren't admitting it.
Authorities in Antigua confirmed last week Vesco had been on the island as a tourist and they were conducting a 'countrywide search' for him.
Vesco has been eluding the FBI since 1972 when he was charged with embezzling $224 million from a collapsing mutual fund and making an illegal $200,000 contribution to President Nixon's re-election campaign.
FBI agents tracking Vesco have provided Antiguan police with fingerprints and photographs of him in the various disguises he has used since he became an international outlaw 10 years ago.
Vesco was in the Bahamas from 1972 until U.S. authorities sought to extradite him. He then fled to Costa Rica where he lived until 1978 when a newly elected government declared him persona non grata.
He returned to Nassau until last year, when he left again as a move to deport him appeared to be making headway.
Vesco reportedly has been moving about the Caribbean in a yacht to avoid capture. Various reports have had him in the Bahamas' out islands and in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
