Billionaire Robert Durst may have hoped to flee to Cuba. Here's how Cuba would have welcomed him

HAVANA - When murder suspect and premium-channel sensation Robert Durst was busted by the FBI at a New Orleans hotel on March 14, he was caught with a big wad of cash, a fancy face mask and several maps of Cuba.

Prosecutors said these accessories suggested a plan to go on lam beyond the reach of U.S. extradition, to the communist island where other American fugitives have found a haven over the decades.

It would have been a terrible idea. Had he reached Cuba, Durst, 71, would probably have been sent back faster than a stack of Rush Limbaugh books.

Because Cuban authorities insist that they will not renege on asylum granted to high-profile U.S. fugitives such as Joanne Chesimard - a.k.a. Assata Shakur - they seem to be even more eager to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement on cases they do not consider political.

The Cuban government knows it pays a price for sheltering figures such as Chesimard, an escaped convict tied to the killing of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. So when an American outlaw such as Durst shows up - accused of murder and hardly a model socialist - Havana has been happy to invite the U.S. Marshals Service to come for a pickup.

It's what Cuban authorities did in 2013 with a Florida couple who tried fleeing to the island on a sailboat with their young kids after losing legal custody of the children. More recently, a reggaeton artist and alleged scam artist had his home raided by Cuban police commandos in January after he ran away from Florida and posted photos of himself on Facebook with guns and cash.

Chesimard is viewed differently, despite her place on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list.

"I can say it is off the table," Cuban Foreign Ministry official Gustavo Machin told reporters this month who asked whether her extradition was possible if talks between the two countries lead to renewed diplomatic relations and enhanced law enforcement cooperation.

With negotiations ongoing, the Castro government does not appear to be interested in inviting new controversy. It's also worth keeping in mind that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden might have been in Venezuela or Ecuador right now - rather than Russia - had be been granted safe passage by the Castro government on that Moscow-Havana flight for which he had a ticket in June 2013.

As it turned out, Cuban President Raúl Castro was entering secret negotiations with the Obama administration at the time. Snowden missed the flight.

As many as 70 U.S. fugitives are thought to remain in Cuba, though many were members of Puerto Rican nationalist groups and militant organizations such as the Black Panthers who fled U.S. justice in the 1970s and '80s. Cuban authorities say they reserve the right to provide asylum to individuals they believe will not face a fair trial in the United States. And Havana has its own list of fugitives it wants U.S. authorities to hand over.

More likely extradition targets, if relations between the two countries are restored, might be the Cuban-born fugitives wanted by the United States for Medicare fraud and other scams highlighted in a recent investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Durst, the subject of the HBO series "The Jinx," about his long career dodging murder accusations, fled to New Orleans just before the show's final episode, in which he appeared to inadvertently confess to the killings.

The FBI caught up with the real estate heir, 71, at a Marriott hotel, where he'd registered under a fake name, traveling with a .38-caliber pistol, several bags of marijuana and 446 hundred-dollar bills, along with maps of Louisiana and Cuba.