Name: Jacob “Kobi” Alexander
Profession: head of Comverse Technology
Date: August 2006
Reason: Accused of massive mail and securities fraud
Method: Skipped court appearance, reportedly wired nearly $50 million overseas, and flew to Israel.
Outcome: Caught two months later in Namibia with his wife and three children. Released pending extradition, he promptly began giving money to Namibian social causes to build up local support.
William Grothe
Name: William Grothe
Profession: attorney
Date: November 2008
Reason: Unknown
Method: Abandoned his car at a riverside park, leaving his wallet on shore, his jacket in the water, and a plastic bag with keys in a nearby neighborhood. Fled to Montana, where he stayed in a motel under his wife’s maiden name and helped cook Thanksgiving dinner for the staff.
Status: Caught, after authorities identified the voice of a 911 caller claiming to have murdered Grothe as Grothe himself.
John Darwin
Name: John Darwin
Profession: teacher
Date: March 2002
Reason: Unknown
Method: Paddled out to sea in a red canoe and was presumed dead after the discovery of the boat’s wreckage. His wife collected his insurance policy, sold their properties in England, and relocated with him to Panama.
Status: Caught after almost six years, when he walked into London police headquarters and claimed he was suffering from amnesia.
Bennie Wint
Name: Bennie Wint
Profession: suspected drug dealer
Date: September 1989
Reason: Paranoia
Method: Believing that authorities were closing in on him, Wint walked into the surf at Daytona Beach, Florida, and snuck out down the beach, leaving behind a fianc and daughter. Moved to North Carolina, started over under the name James Sweet, remarried, and had a son.
Status: Caught in January 2009, when he was pulled over and found to be driving without ID. The cops could find no record of a 1989 drug investigation.
Name: David J. Friedland
Profession: former New Jersey state senator
Date: 1985
Reason: Convicted of kickback scheme
Method: In the Federal Witness Protection program as part of a pension kickback plea, faked his drowning in a Bahamas scuba diving accident and traveled to Kenya, Venice, Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Status: Caught two years later in the Maldives, where he was operating a successful chain of scuba dive shops.
James Joseph Bulger
Name: James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger
Profession: gangster
Date: 1995
Reason: Charged with murder, extortion and other crimes
Method: Disappeared on the eve of his indictment.
Status: At large. Federal marshals have tracked Bulger to an island off of Louisiana, then Europe, Canada, and Mexico, but remain always a step behind him.
Steven Chin Leung
Name: Steven Chin Leung
Profession: computer consultant
Date: November 2001
Reason: Charged with passport fraud
Method: Posed as his nonexistent brother and claimed that Steven had been employed at the trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald and died on 9/11.
Status: Caught by the US Marshals in February 2002 and sentenced to four years in prison by a federal judge, who noted that Leung would’ve likely received probation for the passport charges.
Name: Alistair Liddle
Profession: lawyer
Date: 1997
Reason: Charged with malpractice; “loveless marriage”
Method: Fled to Cornwall, England, adopted the name Robert Fox, worked as a flower picker, remarried, and lost a lot of weight.
Status: Picked up in connection with another police matter and served a year in prison for embezzling the money to fund his escape.
Name: Edward Irby
Profession: gold miner
Date: 1997
Reason: None
Method: Disappeared just after starting bulldozer training. Divers found his bulldozer at the bottom of a pond, but not his body.
Status: Believed deceased. The mining company, faced with paying his death benefits, claimed Irby had faked it and that a witness had spotted him down south. In 2009, the company lost the suit in the Alaska Supreme Court.
Name: Gandaruban Subramaniam
Profession: businessman
Date: 1987
Reason: Debt
Method: Had relatives report he’d been killed by rebels in the Sri Lankan civil war, moved to London, and worked as a street sweeper for 20 years.
Status: Caught reentering Singapore on a fake passport in October 2007, now serving a three-year prison sentence.
Rebecca Parrett
Name: Rebecca Parrett
Profession: health industry executive
Date: March 2008
Reason: Accused of fraud
Method: Indicted along with co-conspirators in $1.7 billion dollar fraud scheme, the 61-year-old grandmother is believed to have fled the US by cruise ship in March of 2008 and to be residing somewhere in Latin America.
Status: At large.
Tomo Razmilovic
Name: Tomo Razmilovic
Profession: former CEO of Symbol Technologies
Date: May 2004
Reason: Accused of securities fraud
Method: Skipped an arraignment for a scheme worth more than $200 million and fled to Europe, reportedly spending time on a yacht on the Adriatic.
Status: At large. Razmilovic has given interviews to the press while on the lam, and was last known to be avoiding extradition in Sweden, where he is a citizen.
Madison Rutherford
Name: Madison Rutherford
Profession: financial adviser
Date: 1998
Reason: Insurance fraud
Method: After taking out a $7 million life insurance policy, he traveled to Mexico, where he rented a car and then burned it along with a body he had reportedly stolen from a mausoleum.
Status: Caught in 2001, after investigators decided the bones were too old to have been his. Found working in Boston under a fake identity.
Name: David M. Venezia
Profession: graduate student
Date: 19910
Reason: MIT bursar’s debt
Method: Pretending to be a cousin, told creditors he had died in an auto accident. Eventually worked as a National Park Service administrator and owner of a modeling company.
Status: Caught in 2002, when authorities found Venezia working under his own name. Acquitted of criminal charges and settled a federal lawsuit.
Susan LeFevre
Name: Susan LeFevre
Profession: parolee
Date: 1976
Reason: Escapee
Method: Serving a sentence for selling heroin, Walsh jumped a barbed-wire fence, fled to California, and lived under the name Marie Walsh for three decades, even bearing three children during that time.
Status: Caught by the US Marshals acting on a tip in May 2008, she served less than a year in prison.
Bruce Ives Leyte
Name: Bruce Ives Leyte
Profession: construction company owner
Date: 2006
Reason: Accused of tax fraud
Method: Left a suicide note in his abandoned truck in 2006 and lived for two years under an assumed name in British Columbia.
Status: Caught in November 2008, when he was arrested after years of being sighted, and sentenced to 28 months in prison.
Bruce James Dale
Name: Bruce James Dale
Profession: carpenter
Date: 2002
Reason: Unknown
Method: Walked away from his wife and three children in 2002. He moved to another city, set up a cabinet-making business under a new name, and remarried.
Status: Caught in July 2008 after he mystifyingly applied for a new passport in his own name.
Samuel Israel
Name: Samuel Israel
Profession: financier
Date: June 2008
Reason: Scheduled to report to prison for a 20-year sentence on fraud charges.
Method: Tried to convince authorities he’d leapt from a bridge over the Hudson River by writing “suicide is painless” — the theme song from M.A.S.H. — in the dust on the hood of his abandoned car. Fled in an RV to a campground in Massachusetts, registering under the name David Klapp.
Status: Turned himself in in late July 2008, after authorities charged his girlfriend with aiding his escape.
Arthur Nadel
Name: Arthur Nadel
Profession: hedge fund manager
Date: January 2009
Reason: Facing fraud indictments
Method: Penned a pseudo-suicidal note to his wife and fled to Louisiana and then posh hotels in San Antonio, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Status: Turned himself in two weeks after employees in Nadel’s office pieced together an incriminating letter to his wife out of his office shredder.
Harry Gordon
Name: Harry Gordon
Profession: businessman
Date: 2000
Reason: Accused of massive life insurance scam
Method: Fake boating accident.
Status: Ran into his own brother by chance on a New Zealand street after five years under a new identity; was arrested and sentenced to 15 months in prison for the scheme.