NEW YORK -- Robert Vesco, the fugitive U.S. financier wanted in connection with crimes ranging from securities fraud to drug trafficking and bribery, died of lung cancer in Cuba late last year, the New York Times reported in today's editions, citing people close to him.

Cuban authorities did not publicly report Vesco's death, considering him a "nonissue," the Times said, while a U.S. official was quoted as saying, "We don't know that it occurred." Vesco was 72.

A millionaire by the time he was 30, Vesco spent decades on the run. He was accused of bilking some $200 million from investors in the 1970s, illegally contributing to President Nixon's reelection campaign, and attempting to arrange a deal in the early 1980s to let Libya buy U.S. planes by trying to bribe U.S. officials, the newspaper reported.