Alleged Drug Kingpin Seized in San Marino

Federal drug agents on Thursday quietly arrested a San Marino resident described as one of the world’s largest cocaine traffickers and successor to the “king” of the Bolivian cocaine trade.

The arrest of Jorge Roca-Suarez, 38, at his 19-room house was confirmed by Julius C. Beretta, special agent in charge of the San Diego office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Agents also arrested Roca’s wife, Beatriz Roca-Torres, 40, in nearby Monterey Park, Beretta said.

Both were being held on charges of conspiracy to possess cocaine with the intent to deliver, the agent said.

Beretta would divulge no more about the arrests or the charges against the couple, saying only that Roca is a resident immigrant in this country and “one of the most significant cocaine traffickers in the United States, on par with a Medellin or Cali cartel leaders.”

One law enforcement source said the arrests stem from a federal indictment that is expected to be unsealed today. The source said the investigation rivals that of former Panama strongman Manuel Noriega, who is jailed in Miami while awaiting trial on drug charges.

Agents arrested Roca at his 5,000-square-foot brick home on a hillside in one of San Marino’s most exclusive enclaves. By late afternoon, agents were still searching the house on Old Mill Road.

Several children as well as a maid were being detained inside the house, agents said.

DEA agents also served as many as 20 search warrants in San Marino, Alhambra, Pasadena and San Dimas, the source said. Roca’s bank accounts were seized, and his properties searched. A house searched in San Dimas has 10,000 square feet of living space and was purchased by Roca for $2 million in cash, the source said.

Roca is from the northeastern Beni region of Bolivia and is known as “Techo de Paja (Straw Roof)” because of his blond hair. His arrest, sources said, is seen as a coup for the DEA because the agency will not need to go through the process of trying to extradite him from a foreign country.

Roca is the nephew of Roberto Suarez Gomez, a DEA fugitive who is currently serving a 15-year sentence in Bolivia on drug charges. Suarez, the patriarch of a respected cattle-ranching family, became known in the 1970s and early 1980s as the ruler of Bolivia’s biggest cocaine-trafficking empires and the “king of cocaine” in that South American country. Bolivian officials have refused U.S. requests for his extradition.

Roca reportedly grew up with his mother in Los Angeles and returned to Bolivia when he was about 20. He allegedly was one of his uncle’s trusted lieutenants. He allegedly betrayed Suarez and now, according to law enforcement officials, rules the Bolivian cocaine trade along with a group of younger cocaine traffickers who provide tons of the drug for the U.S. and European drug markets.

County property records indicate that “George and Cirila Roca” bought the San Marino home for $1.4 million in July, 1988.

Don Banderas, principal of San Marino High School, said Jorge Roca-Suarez told him he was in the real estate business. Roca’s 17-year-old son enrolled in the school in September along with three other relatives, either siblings or cousins, the principal said.

Although the average family income in San Marino is about $127,000, some of the Rocas’ neighbors in the San Gabriel Valley city were struck by their apparent wealth.

“One of my neighbors did say he (had) too many fancy cars and stuff,” said one woman who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another neighbor said that the family lived quietly and put a lot of work into the house.

“It’s getting scary,” said one woman who noted that the house is located half a block from the scene of a Feb. 5, 1988, shoot-out between DEA agents and a carload of Taiwanese drug suspects that left two agents and two suspects dead. “I think I’ll move,” she added, with a laugh.

Bolivia is a significant cog in the international cocaine trade and provides a large proportion of the coca leaves and cocaine paste that are eventually refined into powdered and rock cocaine.

Illegal drug trafficking in the country began in earnest in the 1970s under the tutelage of the Colombian traffickers. In his heyday, Roca’s uncle, Suarez, lived and operated virtually with impunity. He once even offered to pay the Bolivian foreign debt--an offer that the government rejected.

The Bolivian press once quoted him as bragging that he had $400 million and 40 airplanes.

He was arrested in 1988, however, and sent to a La Paz penitentiary. Soon after, then-U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz applauded the arrest as a “triumph of law enforcement” in the South American country.

But DEA officials said Roca--once a trusted lieutenant in the ring--had already taken over the drug operation by dealing on his own with the Colombian drug cartels, supplying them with semi-refined cocaine paste at prices lower than those charged by his uncle.

In August, 1988, a DEA spokesman said Roca “knows we are investigating him, and he may be afraid of going back (to the United States) now.” It was unknown when Roca returned.

Times staff writers Paul Lieberman and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.