Word: bolivia
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...into the fray. In Colombia, U.S. subsidies have spurred antinarcotics agents into pursuing the drug mafiosos, as they are referred to by Colombian newspapers, with some success. The first four Colombians ever to be extradited to the U.S. appeared in Miami and Washington courts last month. In Peru and Bolivia, however, the U.S. has been largely defeated in its fight to stamp out the coca plant* where it is grown...