He is the man most wanted by drug-enforcement officials in Bolivia. Yet to some of his countrymen, Roberto Suarez Gomez, 53, sometimes known as the King of Cocaine, is a folk hero, portraying himself as a modern Robin Hood to Bolivians disillusioned by years of official corruption. In their book, Bolivia: Coca Cocaina, Authors Amado Canelas Orellana and Juan Carlos Canelas Zannier say that Suarez's popularity springs from the fact that his wealth originated "in the depravity of the Yanquis (drug abuse in the U.S.) and not in the robbing of the coffers of the state."
Indeed, Suarez is said to be a great benefactor. A wealthy cattleman with vast lands in Bolivia's Beni region, he reportedly has underwritten most of the education costs for an entire district and regularly provides technical or college education abroad for young people in the area. Little wonder, then, that when Suarez had appendicitis two years ago, he was able to slip into the hospital in Santa Cruz (pop. 376,000), his hometown in Bolivia's Oriente region, for treatment. "The authorities were searching for him," explains one of Suarez's friends, "but the whole town conspired to protect him."
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration believes it was in the mid-1970s that Suarez first realized the fabulous profits that could be made from coca. As an expert pilot with a fleet of planes, acquired to transport beef from his isolated ranches, he was able, so the story goes, to become a long- distance middleman between Bolivian coca growers and Colombian buyers, shipping the leaves to processing plants.
By 1980, DEA intelligence reports estimated that Suarez's coca operations were earning him $400 million a year. In an effort to catch him, U.S. antinarcotics forces launched one of the most elaborate sting operations in the DEA's history. A dozen agents posed as underworld financiers and traffickers. By purchasing $9 million worth of coca paste, they lured two alleged Suarez associates to Miami for the payoff--and arrested them. As a result of the operation, Suarez was indicted by a Miami federal grand jury: so far, however, he has eluded his pursuers. He has also repeatedly denied any involvement in the drug trade and calls himself "an agro-industrial entrepreneur."
In 1982, Suarez's son, Roberto Jr., also wanted in connection with the sting, was arrested in Switzerland for carrying a false passport. He was subsequently extradited to Miami--Suarez maintains that he was kidnaped--to stand trial for cocaine trafficking. In response, the elder Suarez published an open letter to President Reagan in the La Paz daily El Diario, offering to turn himself in on two conditions: his son be released and the U.S. pay off Bolivia's entire foreign debt. The issue became academic when a Miami federal jury acquitted Roberto Jr.
The Suarez legend continues to grow in Bolivia, even if many of the stories told about him are probably wildly exaggerated. He has been seen carrying a gold-plated handgun and keeps a pet leopard, said to wear a gold collar studded with diamonds, near his side at his ranch in the Beni. In interviews with journalists, Suarez has boasted that he has hired Libyan "experts" to train his security force and that his ranchland retreats are defended by missile-carrying aircraft. He also likes to buy newspaper space to lecture his countrymen on the corruption in their government.