Reputed Bolivian Kingpin Hit With 30 Drug Charges : Narcotics: Jorge Roca Suarez, 27 others named in massive U.S. government indictments. Allegations include cocaine trafficking, money laundering, tax evasion and bank fraud.

The federal government on Friday unveiled two massive indictments against reputed Bolivian drug kingpin Jorge Roca Suarez, accusing him of running a multi-ton cocaine trafficking organization, money laundering, tax evasion, bank fraud and conspiracy to export millions of dollars in U.S. currency.

Indictments unsealed in Los Angeles and San Diego contained 30 charges presented against Roca, 38, at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Robert M. Stone in Los Angeles. Roca will be formally arraigned on Dec. 21. Eight other people, including his wife, his mother and his sisters, were named in the Los Angeles case and 19 others in the San Diego case.

His sister, Beatriz Roca, secretly sent millions of dollars of cash from Los Angeles to Bolivia, hidden in vacuum cleaners shipped by Eastern Air Cargo in March, 1986, the Los Angeles indictment alleges.

The San Diego indictment asserts that as part of Roca’s operation, “corrupt Mexican officials” and associates of Roca in the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, the Federal Security Directorate and the Mexican Army would provide “official” protection, security, communications and refueling facilities in Mexico for cocaine-laden aircraft from Bolivia, bound for the United States.

In addition to the indictments, the Justice Department filed 15 civil lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday seeking the forfeiture of 15 residential properties estimated to be worth $8 million, including the palatial 19-room home in San Marino where Roca was arrested Thursday. His wife, Cirila, was arrested in nearby Monterey Park.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John F. Gibbons said the government would ask that Roca, his wife and four other people who are in custody be held without bail pending trial.

The indictments describe Roca as the head of a huge operation that included many family members. His operatives, the indictment said, helped control all aspects of the cocaine trade, including the buying of coca paste in Bolivia, the importation and distribution of the finished product to the United States and the laundering of millions of dollars in drug proceeds.

Ralph Lochridge, a DEA spokesman in Los Angeles, said Roca was a primary supplier of raw materials for cocaine production to Pablo Escobar, the Colombian cocaine kingpin.

“He would be like U.S. Steel supplying steel to General Motors and Ford,” Lochridge said. Roca’s attorney, Sylvan P. Da Rocha III of Pasadena, would not comment on the charges because he said that he had not had time to study the indictment.

The indictment alleges that the defendants structured financial transactions to evade federal laws that require the filing of reports of all cash transactions exceeding $10,000.

During 1985 and 1986, Beatriz Roca and and her mother, Blanca Suarez, received about $50 million to $60 million in cash from unknown members of the alleged narcotics conspiracy, the indictment said, and the money was deposited in banks throughout Southern California.

The first account was opened by Blanca Suarez with $9,000 on April 12, 1985, at Home Savings of America in Alhambra, according to the indictment.

One count asserts that in 1987 Jorge and Cirila Roca attempted to evade taxes by filing a false income tax return stating that their income for 1985 was $75,536.92. In fact, according to the indictment, the Rocas had a taxable income of $2,121,053 in 1985 and owed the government $965,631 in taxes.

The San Diego indictment revealed that an undercover DEA agent, David Wheeler, penetrated the operation in September, 1987. Posing as a drug trafficker, Wheeler met with Pablo Giron, described as a commander of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, who agreed to provide protection to Roca’s operation at a fee of $1 million per 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, the indictment said.

Subsequently, Giron and DEA agents met in San Diego, Panama City and other places to negotiate drug deals, the indictment said. That set in motion events that led to Thursday’s arrests.

Officials said they expect the arrests to create a serious vacuum in the drug trade, but they do not expect the vacuum to remain for long.

“It will be disrupted for a while, but at some point in time someone will fill the vacuum,” said Julius Beretta, DEA special agent in charge in San Diego.

DEA officials said the investigation of Roca was an offshoot of a previous probe that involved negotiations for a massive cocaine buy from Mexican traffickers, including a Mexican army colonel.

In that case, according to U.S. officials, Col. Jorge Carranza agreed to seal off a highway near the Mexican town of Puebla, so a cocaine-laden plane traveling from Bolivia could land and refuel.

The indictments unsealed Friday say that Roca was an immigrant to the United States with permanent resident status who traveled “in approximately 1981” from Los Angeles to Bolivia to begin working for his uncle, Robert Gomez Suarez, at the time known as the “Cocaine King of Bolivia.”

Since then, the indictment alleges, Roca has become “a leader and decision maker of an international cocaine trafficking cartel” known as the “Santa Ana Cartel.”

The indictment alleged that Roca’s brothers, Fernando and Felipe Roca, and his sisters, Teresa Roca and Asunta Roca, all played key roles in the purchase of cocaine paste in Bolivia and its transportation to clandestine laboratories where it was processed into crystal form. Roca’s mother, Blanca Suarez and Beatriz Roca, permanent resident immigrants of the United States, helped direct the shipment of millions of dollars of drug proceeds from Los Angeles to Bolivia, the indictment says.

Roca bribed Bolivian law enforcement and government officials, the indictment said, to secure “protection” and to prevent the arrest of his confederates.

As part of his sophisticated operation, Roca paid individuals to monitor local law enforcement in Bolivia, the Bolivian National Police, the “Leopardos” (a paramilitary anti-narcotics enforcement group within the Bolivian National Police) and DEA personnel to avoid detection and arrest.

He also built and maintained clandestine airstrips in Bolivia, which his associates could use to facilitate the movement of cocaine paste, base and crystal from various locations in Bolivia to Colombia, Mexico and the United States.

Roca used “kidnapings, beating and murder” to protect his business and informed on rivals to reduce competition, the indictment said.

The civil suits allege that the properties the government wants to seize were purchased with drug proceeds and therefore should be forfeited to the United States, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Leon Wediman. A government list showed that nine of the properties are in Alhambra, two are in Fontana, one in Monterey Park, one in West Covina, one in San Dimas and one in San Marino.

In addition to Roca, his wife and two sisters, federal authorities also arrested Antonia Carrillo, 40, and Emilio Diaz, 27.

Times staff writer Andrea Ford contributed to this story.