Robert Maheu, the FBI agent ad CIA fixer who worked for Las Vegas casino mogul Howard Hughes has died at the age of 91.

Vegas folklore tells the story that Maheu helped Hughes to “rid Las Vegas of mob influence.”

Maheu was from a French-Canadian background and worked for the FBI as a translator during World War II.  He gave misinformation to Nazi spies as he posed as a Nazi-sympathising Canadian.  After World War II he started his own private detective agency where he secretly cooperated with the CIA, who many of his former FBI colleagues worked for so the CIA could deny any link to him.

Hughes hired Maheu in 1954 to deal with a woman who was attempting to blackmail him.  Hughes continued to hire him to spy on other women such as Ava Gardner and to conduct industrial espionage.  In 1957, Hughes asked Maheu to become his public intermediary, so Maheu became the alter-ego of the reclusive Hughes.

When Maheu was hired to serve a subpoena on a Las Vegas casino owner, Washington fixer Edward Bennet Williams introduced him to Las Vegas mafia boss Johnny Roselli.  Maheu and Roselli became friends and it is rumoured that the CIA tried to use the mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidal Castro in 1960 by contacting Maheu. 

In 1966, Maheu took up residence in Las Vegas to work full-time as chief executive for Hughes’ Nevada operations.  At this time Hughes was in the process of extending his Las Vegas casino empire to become the third biggest landowner in the state of Nevada.  Hughes owned six casinos in Las Vegas by the end of the sixties to go with his massive portfolio of other properties.  Maheu and Hughes never met face to face instead contacting each other by phone, memo, letter, carrier pigeon and however else people used to contact each other without meeting face to face in the days before email!

Maheu’s full-time employment with Hughes lasted four years when he was sacked.  Maheu didn’t get on with Chester Davis and Bill Gay – two board of directors employed by Hughes.  At this time Hughes moved to the Bahamas never to return to Las Vegas and the reclusive billionaire past away in 1976.

Clifford Irving’s fake biography of Howard Hughes was published in 1972.  In it he described Maheu as a “no-good son of a bitch who robbed me blind”.  Maheu took Hughes to court to sue for defamation of character. Despite Hughes denying he wrote the book.  Maheu won a $2.8 million verdict, overturned on appeal and eventually settled out of court.

After working for Hughes, Maheu set up his private detective agency again and became a leading citizen of Las Vegas. 

He died of cancer and heart failure on 4th August 2008.

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