Drug Suspect Stood Out in Posh Enclave

If Jorge Roca Suarez had hoped to blend in among the denizens of San Marino, the alleged cocaine kingpin badly misjudged the ways of the clubby and genteel enclave.

Long before his arrest Thursday by federal agents, the Bolivian immigrant had raised the eyebrows of neighbors of his 19-room brick house near Old Mill and Chelsea roads--one of the poshest corners in one of the nation’s poshest communities. There had been months of speculation about the source of the family’s obvious wealth, questions about the Roca children’s poor performance in school, whispers about a “Colombian Mafia” connection.

Said one neighbor: “I suppose it’s prejudice, but after watching ‘Miami Vice’ for all these years, what are you going to think?”

San Marino--a 3.75-square-mile community shaded in oaks and bordered by Pasadena, South Pasadena, Alhambra, San Gabriel and unincorporated county territory--has long enjoyed a reputation as a preserve for old money, a place, say, for corporate presidents, not movie stars. With an estimated annual average household income of $127,000, it is one of the wealthiest communities in the country. And the city’s 13,650 residents enforce a rigorous set of regulations to maintain their lifestyle.

For instance, a car can be visible in a driveway for no more than 48 hours continuously, only one family is allowed for each home, trash cans cannot be in view of the street and chain-link fences are expressly prohibited. Apartments, too, are banned, along with the sale of liquor at restaurants and door-to-door peddlers. In 1989, there were no murders, 1 rape, 19 robberies, 10 assaults and 89 burglaries.

“It’s not the kind of place where you’d be inconspicuous,” said Don Banderas, principal of San Marino High School. “In my estimation, he picked the wrong place to come.”

Banderas said that four Rocas, either siblings or cousins, attended San Marino High School, where nearly 99% of students go on to college and test scores exceed those of 99% of the state’s schools. The Roca children, he said, stuck out like “sore thumbs.”

“The kids weren’t performing like kids living here in town,” he said, adding that at one point he even drove by the Roca house to confirm where they lived. “I was very suspicious of how you could live in what is probably a several-million-dollar home and be so uninspired at school.”

On Friday, in the beauty salons, boutiques and full-service gas stations of the city, residents were quick to disown the outsiders.

“He probably figured that this was the perfect place, that he could hide among these type of people and never be caught,” said Eva Nagy, a manicurist at Designer’s Cut, who has worked in the city for 10 years. “But he was wrong. This isn’t some flashy area like Beverly Hills.”

Younger residents who attended school with Roca’s children and relatives in retrospect confided that, although they had been told the family was in the real estate business, they always had suspected the money came from illicit sources.

“It was supposed to be a secret,” said another neighbor, a student at USC. “But a lot of kids our age knew.”

Mayor Suzanne Crowell said she was surprised by the news of Roca’s arrest: “We’re all shocked it could happen in our town. I think this is the kind of news that one always hopes happens in some other place.”

San Marino police officials had been informed of the investigation, and even assisted federal agents in a search of the Roca home. But they conceded they had been unaware that a suspected international drug trafficker was living in town.

“A lot of the guys are saying, ‘Wow,’ ” said San Marino Police Cmdr. Paul Butler. “It was surprising, but I guess not beyond belief.”

At the weekly San Marino Tribune, however, reporters were more jaded.

“No one feels this is an impenetrable island,” said one member of the staff, recalling a 1988 shoot-out that left two DEA agents and two drugs suspects dead. “We’re a little more street-wise than we used to be.”

All of this is not to say that Roca’s attempted assimilation into San Marino was a total failure. Some neighbors of the 38-year-old suspect were quick to take note Friday of the amount of money he had spent restoring the 5,000-square-foot home--owned previously by a top Thrifty Drug Store executive.

“The landscaping was done very tastefully,” said one longtime resident, who like many in the city asked not to be identified. “We were thinking of inviting them to the block Christmas party. But we didn’t have a name.”

Times staff writer Berkeley Hudson contributed to this story.