Long-Sought Robert Vesco Held in Cuba : Securities: The financier, accused of bilking his mutual fund investment firm, hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since 1972.

Cuban officials have detained longtime fugitive financier Robert L. Vesco and federal officials are preparing to bring him back to the country he fled more than 23 years ago, law enforcement sources said Thursday.

The sources said a provisional arrest warrant was issued Thursday in Florida for the arrest of Vesco, although a Clinton Administration official was unable to confirm that. Vesco left the country in 1972 after being charged with embezzling $224 million from his investment firm; in 1989, he was indicted on federal drug charges that arose from the prosecution of former Medellin cocaine cartel kingpin Carlos Lehder. A warrant is one of the early legal steps in the process of obtaining a fugitive’s return from a foreign country.

“Yes, the Cubans have told us that he has been detained,” an Administration official said Thursday night. “They have approached the federal government and said, ‘We’ve got Robert Vesco.’ And they would be interested in finding out more information.”

One source said a team of federal agents was prepared to fly to Cuba in the near future to take custody of Vesco and that the Cubans have indicated they are prepared to allow Vesco to be taken from the island nation where he has lived for more than 10 years.

There was little information available about what kind of agreement U.S. law enforcement authorities had with Cuban officials or when it was reached. In late April, Peter Tarnoff, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s national assembly, met unannounced in Toronto for negotiations that produced an agreement by which Cubans fleeing their country by boat are to be returned to Cuba. Tarnoff could not be reached Thursday night.

Vesco’s return to this country would end a tumultuous tale of 23 years on the lam in at least three countries.

He stands accused of stealing $224 million from his mutual fund firm, then of trying to get Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell and Commerce Secretary Maurice H. Stans to fix the case by funneling an illegal $200,000 contribution to President Richard Nixon’s campaign fund.

The alleged fraud sent him into exile in 1972, but that was only the beginning. Since then he has been investigated, indicted or named in a dozen other high-profile cases at diverse points in the Western Hemisphere.

Vesco has not been seen in the United States since sometime in 1972, when he refused to return from Switzerland to answer questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission about his Swiss-based mutual fund, Investors Overseas Services.

Vesco bought the troubled company from flamboyant British businessman Bernard Cornfeld, promising to rescue investors by pumping in new money. Instead he plundered IOS, the SEC charged in a still-pending 1972 civil case.