The Underworld Podcast - The Nazi Drug Kingpin, the Biggest Narco You've Never Heard Of & The Cocaine Coup

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

It’s January 5, 1982, and the central American state of Panama is playing host to one of the most extraordinary narco summits in history. Hosting the pow-wow is Manuel Noriega, chief of Panamanian military intelligence and just a year from siezing its control. Pablo Escobar, head of what will become the feared Medellin Cartel, is there too. But even these criminal heavyweights aren’t the biggest gangsters in the room. That title belongs to Roberto Suarez Gomez, Bolivia’s so-called King of Cocaine, supplier of Andean coca paste to a global blow industry. Suarez, a former cattle rancher and heir to a rubber fortune, has never been more powerful. Just two years previous he’d backed Bolivia’s so-called ‘Cocaine Coup', tearing through capital La Paz and installing violent general Luis Garcia Meza as president. Since then Suarez has built the modern cocaine market, cementing Escobar as his chief buyer, and pulling in Noriega and even the Castros of Cuba. But Suarez couldn’t have done all this without the fourth man in this room in Panama, quiet and slight, with a saturnine face that belies the litany of evil he’s managed in his 67 years. This is Klaus Barbie, fugitive SS officer and so-called ‘Butcher of Lyon’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. It's January 5, 1982, and the Central American state of Panama is playing host to one of the most extraordinary narco summits in history. Hosting the powell is Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panamanian Military Intelligence, and just a year for, from seizing the country's control. Pablo Escobar, head of what will become the feared Medellin cartel, he's there too. He's about to become a Colombian congressman, ensuring parliamentary immunity, a diplomatic passball, and cover has become the world's most infamous narco-terrorist.

But even these criminal heavyweights aren't the biggest gangsters in the room. That title belongs to Roberto Suarez Gomez, Bolivia's so-called king of Cocaine. supplier of Andean coca paste to a global blow industry that's fueling Hollywood and Wall Street careers and destroying lives in the ghettos of L.A., New York and all over the United States. Suarez, a former cattle rancher and heir to a rubber fortune, has never been more powerful. Just two years previous, he'd back Bolivia's so-called cocaine coup, tearing through capital La Paz and instoring violent general Luis Garcia Mesa as president. Since then, Suarez has built the modern cocaine market, cementing Escobar as his chief buyer

and pulling in Noriega and even the castros of Cuba, so slick does Suarez's operation run that most know it as La Corporacion, the corporation, worth an estimated $400 million a year. One DEA officer who tried and failed to bust it calls the group the General Motors of Cocaine. But Suarez couldn't have done all this without the fourth man in this room in Panama, quiet and slight, with a saturnine face that belies the litany of evil he's managed in his 67 years. This is Klaus Barbie, fugitive SS officer and so-called butcher of Leon, despised for his role in the deaths of French resistance fighters and thousands of Jewish men, women and children. Rather than hide in Latin America, like so many Nazis fleeing,

European justice, Barbie has thrived in the open, albeit under a false name. Barbie, as Klaus Altman, pitched up in Bolivia before getting wildly rich off black markets in pharmaceuticals, shipping, counterfeiting, and of course, cocaine. The German employed his skills in violence, torture and manipulation to christen the so-called bridegrooms of death, a right-wing death squad comprised of gangsters, Nazis and fascist It was Barbie and the bridegrooms who led the cocaine coup, and it's Barbie, acting as Suarez's number one henchman, who's brokered this meeting with Escobar and Noriega. According to Suarez's wife, his Jewish wife, by the way, Barbie's connections go even

further than that. Barbie has escaped Europe with the help of the Vatican, of course, and it's through these Nazi sympathizing prelates that is for his boss, with Roberto Calvi. president of the Vatican's Banco Ambrosiano, aka God's banker. That, says Suarez's wife, was how General Motors cocaine flooded Europe with the blessing and participation of the Holy See in Rome. Calvi would be dead in six months, his body found swinging from a London bridge. And it's barely a year before life will finally catch up with Klaus Barbie too,

tripped up by politics in La Paz and a pair of intrepid Nazi hunters who've chased him around the world. But that's all to come. Right now, in this Panama meeting, Klaus Barbie, Nazi, mass murderer, trafficker and paramilitary is one of the most important gangsters

on the planet. This is the underworld podcast. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the weekly crime show that tries to make sense of the senseless money from podcasting. I'm Sean Williams coming to you from a sunny and frozen Seoul South Korea, and I'm joined today, as ever, by Intrepid Rodeo fan and Dog Walker Danny Gold in New York.

You want to say something about the rodeo you went to? You're going to move to Arkansas and start wearing like Dickies Dungaree soon? Professional bull riders at Madison Square Garden, dude, with a bunch of friends. It ruled. Drank Budweiser, tall boys, ate hot dogs. Do you know, in bullfighting the objective, you got to hit eight seconds and then you're good? I didn't know that, and I kind of feel like I could do it. I mean, please do it.

Yes. That would be an awesome episode of the show. As we mentioned last week, I'm about to fly from here to Croatia, which is just as well because I think I'm going to get gout if I eat any more ramen or fried chicken and sit at the food here. Oh, my God, I want to move. One of the weird things about this job is that I suppose I wrote most of this script about Bolivian cocaine Nazis while sitting in a Chinese cafe in Seoul,

which is kind of part of the fun, huh? A quick shout out to follow us on the socials, buy our t-shirts, mugs just generally help us fend off death and taxes with any get rich screams you want to read about on 4chan um you want to know any more about career danny or should i just get on with this i think you should get on with it eventually i want to know more but also yeah patreon dot com slash neural podcast sign up there or on spotify or itunes definitely do ratings comments all that and the underworld podcast at gmail com for anything else. Cool.

Yeah, so Klaus Barbie Part 2, it is. I have plopped us right into the height of his power in the cold open. By the end of the last episode on this topic, we were kind of at the end of the second act of a La Cary or Lendayton thriller. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty insane cold open, right, with legs of like seven different separate episodes that we've done. I mean, you did the God's Banker thing a ways back, I think, right? This whole web would make like a solid 10 episode series,

someone should pay you for it's just it's mad stuff well just just buy the IP to this episode guys that would be good uh it should go without saying if you haven't already listened to that do so right now without hesitation but here's a brief rundown of where we're out um maybe dale could play some oldie-worldy top of the pops charmed music or something so claus barby this nazi monster has come from europe to latin america hooking up with right-wing business and military guys in bolivia which basically goes for a coup more often than Danny complains about a bright summer. He gets rich dipping into post-war black markets, which he was already doing before Germany lost the war,

and he leads the bridegrooms of death, lost Nobios de Mueite, on a rampage, taking control of Bolivia on behalf of Roberto Suarez Gomez, the re de la Cocainea, or king of cocaine. Wait, was that a... Did you just make a Brat Summer reference? It's like January of 2025, dude. I will be 40 this year.

So these are my touch points. He's also been working for U.S. and German intelligence. Barbie, that is, not Charlie XX. Who know his true identity, even while he's hooking Suarez up with Latin America's assorted narcos and dictators, your Noriegers and your eskabas. He's the guy in the shadows, the cocaine industry's puppet master.

And this is the early 80s. So basically even your grandma is taking coke and working in boiler rooms and watching Miami Vice, still 3 a.m., I reckon. I kind of, yeah, the phrase taking Coke

has always bothered me. I feel like, you know, just say, just say doing Coke. Like that, that works much better. Okay,

thank you. Yeah. Didn't I say, like, using something else terrible last week as well? I'm just like, completely losing my mind.

I don't know. I don't mean you specifically. People say that all the time. And I'm just like, what is that? I don't know. You're great. You're great,

you're great, though. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I needed that boost. It is 818 AM. However, Barby's true identity has been revealed for almost a decade by this point,

not by Western officials, but by Biazza and Serge Klausfeld, two of the most famous Nazi hunters on earth, who've already tried and failed to kidnap him and deliver him to justice across the Atlantic. It's not as easy as it sounds, man. Like, you know, when they grabbed Eichmann, the UN issued condemnations, and there were like multiple countries who protested about sovereignty. Yeah, including Argentina.

Hmm, okay. which brings us at this point up to this Panama Narco Summit in 1982, just as Noriega and Pablo Escobar are reaching the peaks of their own power. But before we dive back into all that drama and the high-speed de Numaumont of Barbie's downfall, do you like that? De Numa, I'm clever. Thank God there is some good news at the end of all this. Let's learn a bit more about Roberto Suarez Gomez,

because this guy was genuinely massive, a true kingpin. and I barely heard about him before researching his stuff and I don't think you did Danny either right no I mean if I've come across his name it wasn't something that that stuck in memory so it was very when you first started talking about this guy a while ago I was very very surprised at like the extent of who he is and what he'd done because it's kind of shocking that it doesn't

that he isn't more well known I would say yeah I think it's to do with the stuff he did at the end of his life which obviously we're going to get into the end of the show but we'll get there incidentally Alejandro Sosa from Scarface, he is supposedly modeled on Suarez. So that's your pod fodder for the week. Yeah, and always remember, if hustling is a must, you want to be Sosa and not Tony. Correct. Yes, that is true. Trigger warning, this episode will include a Robin Hood reference, I think maybe even two. But here's the tale of the biggest narco you never even heard of.

And it begins in 1932, when Suarez is born into a family of rubber merchants in the vast jungle state of Beni, northeastern Bolivia, which backs on to Brazil, and even today is home to just over half a million people, very, very remote, inaccessible place. But it's not like Suarez's folks are just some backcountry farmers. These are descendants of Bolivia's biggest rubber traders, with huge land holdings outside La Paz and the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, which is Bolivia's largest city today. In fact, by 1890, their company, Casa Suarez, supports. applies up to 70% of global rubber demand. It is colossal. And it acts, in the words of one academic paper I read, as a parisstate in remote areas with a history of chronic, economic and social

restructuring. Nice. Anybody who's watched Fitzcaraldo would know the bottom fill out of rubber at the start of the 20th century. So, the family switched their 6.5 million hectares, which is about the size of Sri Lanka or West Virginia, to cattle ranching. It is this gigantic business that Roberto is born into a nepo baby, in a country where it's pretty rare to be a nepo baby, and he expands it and his bank balance, becoming more of a key player in Bolivia's political scene at the same time, which is fought more at the barrel of an AK than the ballot boxes you might have got into a couple of weeks back. Coups, by the way, since Bolivia's independence in 1825, 190 absolute limbs, I think the kids say. I don't think anyone says that. Oh man, you need

to watch more British Instagram videos about football fans. Maybe it's a British thing, yeah. Then I would not be tuned in. Yeah, I'm very down with the youth. Suarez gets married to Aida Libby in 1958, and the couple are going to have four kids. That is not all of his siring, as we'll get into later. But throughout the 60s, agrariness of reform and global economics

starts whacking the Suarez cattle firm hard. Roberto then gets deeper into the state, becoming a local leader in 1962 while his older brother, Hugo, I guess, is appointed agricultural minister. Deswarez is too big to fail, basically. And Lapaz knows that if they go down, there's going to be a massive black hole in food supply, jobs and social services in one of the nation's poorest corners. So you're sitting pretty, you might think. But times to quote Bobby Dylan, they are a changing, aren't they always, Danny? And in the 1970s, a highway connects Benny with Bolivia's sparking a wave of migration

exactly when the trade in coca paste is on the up. Suarez has suddenly found himself sitting on the world's hottest drug industry and he's already got the tools to frithe. Here's a piece by the academic Eric Dante Gutierrez, quote, In the same way that cattle farming benefited from the foundations

built by rubber, Roberto's drug business benefited from his cattle infrastructure. Roberto trained as a pilot and modernized the cattle business by building airstrips on his ranch and invested in what became Bolivia's largest private fleet of small aircraft. With the aircraft, Roberto was able to transport meat quickly to Bolivian and Brazilian cities and gain considerable value added.

So, you know, yeah, like Nepo baby, but I mean, the guy, he's on the ball, right? This is innovation. Oh, yeah. He might deserve some recognition for this. Yeah, I mean, I haven't watched all of succession, but what's the succession sort of parallel here, like which kid is not an idiot? I don't really remember, but, uh, no, there we go. They cut off.

It's not a good reference for you. Anyway, yes, you're right. Good business is just good business. And Suarez is no dispassionate Mandarin. He's loved by the farmers, has relationships with many of them, like not sexual relationships. And it's for that reason that he's known by many as El Robin Hood del Beni. Apologies for the reference there, there is. Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up,

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chilling, true crime story connected to that exact day in history. From Killer Cannibal Brothers, to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult, and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the... cases you've heard a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before? With over 2,500 episodes and a brand new story each and every single day, morning cup of murder becomes part of your routine fast.

If you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, then sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. By the mid-1970s, Suarez already controls a large portion of Latin American coca production, and he gets in with Barbie, Garcia, Mesa and other military leaders looking to snatch control of Bolivia from its leftist government. In 1980, of course, they do just that. And Suarez doubles down on his relationship with Escobar and the nascent Medellin cartel in Colombia,

making them the preferred buyers for his mountains and mountains of coca. Now, this relationship isn't all smooth sailing. In fact, in the early days, it's pretty common for the Colombians to show up at one of Suarez's jungle airstrips with suitcases filled with banknotes at the top, put paper below, just exactly like you see in a Michael Bay movie, and then escape with the gear while fiery on Suarez's men with machine guns. It's not great business practice, but I guess if you get away with it, all good. Pretty soon, however, Klaus Barbie puts a stop to these shenanigans. working with a wanted German neo-Nazi named Joachim Fibylcon,

literally, I mean, everyone in the bridegrooms of death is like an evil villain from a comic book. Barbie surrounds air strips of men carrying bazookas during each deal. The Colombians get the message. They stop bilking the Bolivians and the relationship grows closer. La Corporacion is truly born. And Barbie even uses his contacts in Italy, remember he came over via the Vatican, to ship gear into Europe, earning his boys the brilliant title La Coca Nostra.

Also, the corporation, not to be confused with a Cuban organized crime group that we did an episode on, I guess it was called, you know, the corporation that was, what was it, Jose Batil? And that was sort of 1950s, 1960s is really when it got going. And their focus was on the sort of illegal lottery, La Bolita. They called themselves La Corporeseon, right? Because I think these guys, other people called them that. So, yeah, it's not, I'm not sure if it's the name that they called themselves, but it's the name we're going to call them. So now we are up to the events of the cold open.

Suarez is cementing ties with Escobar and Noriega and Barbie is his security point man, says a retireability and soldier, quote, you can't imagine the protection operations that were set up here every time Pablo Escobar arrived. Barbie himself was in charge of clearing the way for him. Suarez has coca flowing through Latin America at record numbers and he's even got product heading in the other direction to Europe Garcia Mesa, the general who's taken power in the cocaine coup, folds the bridegrooms of death into Bolivia's national drug control agency. Yes, the narcos are now the DEA.

And he tasked Barbie and his fascist nutcases around 600 of them in total by now with eliminating smaller competition. According to David Klein at the Atlantic, quote, leading units of the Bolivian army the Nazis raided the illegal drug factories of the smaller producers smashed up the equipment impounded their stocks of cocaine

and forced many of them to hand over their houses luxury flats, airplanes, boats and whatever money they had those who resisted were tortured and killed as examples to others and that quote by the way is why we don't open sentences for subclause but go off client anyway Suarez it goes without saying

is wildly powerful by this point by some measures the most powerful drug kingpin on earth. But while he's played a steady hand over all these decades, building power in agriculture, politics and narcotics, heavy Danny is the head that wears the crown. Shakespeare said that, deal with it. You're saying my name a lot.

Is that like some LinkedIn influencer power play that I don't know about or something along those lines? Yeah, I mean, I'm always attempting to get to play those kind of mental games with everyone I need now, ABC. Yeah. Swares's downfall is no steady decline. It is chaotic and combustive. And at this point in the tail, everyone, we're right at the top of the roller coaster, looking down. Don't worry, Klaus Barby is still going to burn with him. We already mentioned a couple of factors of this in the first part, but I'll run you through them both briefly now. First, while it's one thing for Narcos to take a country, it's quite another for them to run it. Garcili Messa, Suarez's puppet. He's pretty shit at politics by a little bit. account and by 1981 with Jimmy Carter, RIP, switching off the tap of full sit guys

of US aid because of all the coups and drugs, the Bolivian people are getting fed up with the narco-fascist overlords of their poor country. That year, Garcia Messer is toppled and he runs away to Argentina with his lieutenant who I'm only mentioning because the US diplomats

dub him the Idiarmine of the Andes, which is a great nickname. With Garcia gone, so is a significant layer of protection for Suarez and Barbie. Not good news for the narcos. Just previous to all of this, Suarez has closed to deal with a Sicilian mobster based in Buenos Aires to sell a thousand kilos of coca for nine million bucks.

In May 1980, this product had left a jungle a strip on a plane set for Florida. Problem, the Sicilian mobster, he isn't a Sicilian mobster at all. He's an undercover DEA agent named Michael Levine. When the plane sets off, Levine has cops arrest two members of Suarez's La Corporacion in a Miami Bank, and he thinks he's scored one of the biggest busts in history and brought down the end of the King of Cocaine. But he hasn't, at least not yet, because Levinezop is about to get stomped on by none other than the CIA. And here is why. It's 1980, which means Iran has just been taken by the Ayatollah, and left-and-right-wing guerrillas are fighting for control of Nicaragua.

So America thinks, why not just get stuck into the cocaine trade to help channel funds to the right-wing Nicodaguans, the so-called Contras, to make sure it doesn't fall to a bunch of unwashed commies. The way Levine tells it in his book, The Big White Lie, the CIA gets Suarez and Barbie off the hook because they're assets. In fact, Levine recounts that the CIA told him it had no information at all on Suarez in his records, which, yeah, would be bullshit. Levine's bust is a washout, and Suarez continues building his corporation across Latin America. I mean, this story is like, it's almost like a we didn't start the fire of narco stories, right?

Pretty much every, all these major news events of like 40 years somehow end up entwined in it. Yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't like to say outright Iran-Contra in that little bit, but, you know, I guess there's going to be like a million podcasts about that so you guys can look it up there. On December 26, 1982, Suarez hosts another get-together. This time in the tiny, tiny village of San Bicente, right in the city. the far south of Bolivia. Now this place is home to only 100 people, but you may have heard of it because it claims to be the site of death of famed bandit Bouch Cassidy, and it's even home to the Moseil Bucch Cassidy e Sundance kid, which is quite funny. It also has a 2.2 kilometre air strip, which means that Suarez can invite his pals from Medellin to what is ostensibly a celebration

of his eldest son Robbie's birthday. But it's actually a kind of Yalta for the cocaine industry's leading lights. academic Gutierrez again. Quote, for the party, airplanes were dispatched to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to pick up celebrity chefs, to Panama to collect boxes of whiskey, champagne and other spirits, and to Colombia to bring in Escobar and Lieutenant Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. When Escobar disembarked, a group of fourth generation,

I don't know why fourth generation is important there, mariachi is from Tikat-Littan, I can never get those names right, Mexico descended from a second plane paying Ranchera music. As the party started, a priors thoroughbred horse named Piropo arrived on a Super DC-3 plane, a gift of the Ochoas to Roberto, who in turn impressed the Colombians when he showed off his fully grown pet jaguar named Kayan. It was evident that these were no ordinary mobsters driving fancy cars. Now Barbie is also there, but he is reeling.

On one hand, his wife and son have just died in quick succession, and with Levine's sting and Bolivia's new civilian leader keen to curry favor with Washington, he fears that La Paz is going to team up with the Klaasfelds, the Nazi hunters, and extradite him to Europe. The following year, Suarez's story, takes another mad turn, when Fidel Castro, yet another cast member of Cold War greats, reaches out to him and Escobar inviting them to Cuba. When they reach Havana, according to Info Bay,

the regime tells them about, quote, the marked interest that Fidel and his entourage had in using drug trafficking as a weapon against Yankee imperialism and in supporting Colombian guerrilla groups with funding from trafficking. Now, there definitely is evidence Suarez has it in for the US. He mocks the war on drugs saying that two American companies, tobacco firm Philip Morris and gunmaker Smith and Westons, kills more people than cocaine.

And besides, he adds, quote, no one can eliminate the largest business in the war. world, i.e. his, which is true. But Suarez would equally be nothing without Yankee imperialists. In fact, no one's done more to inflate his bank balance than the spies and cocaine users of the United States. So Swires isn't going to start funding some communist insurgencies if it costs him dollar. The story goes that Castro figures this out and arranges to have Suarez and Escobar arrested in Havana in an attempt to help out their Nicaraguan buddies, the leftists. But two Cuban generals warn the pair, allowing them to escape before the arresting party arrives.

And both of these generals are later executed by firing squad. Dude, you can't even do this in like one season, right? You need multiple seasons. We need like Jeff Bezos' Lord of the Ring budgets for this kind of thing. It's crazy. Yeah, like when you think about what they covered in Narcos, I really don't know why they weren't doing this stuff. This is so much more interesting.

Anyway, Suarez and Escobar flee back to their jungle redoubts, but cracks in their relationship are beginning to appear. For one, Suarez is reportedly growing tide of the Mejijin cartel's relentless campaigns of violence against civilians. I mean, this is coming from a guy teaming up with a Nazi mass murderer, of course, but Escobar's blood soap worked is too much for him. By 1983, the CIA is scaling down in its involvement of Suarez, and with it another vital pillar in his protection. That year, he reaches out to the US government, offering to settle Bolivia's entire national,

debt, which is over $3 billion then, in return for lifelong amnesty. But the US says, nah. There might be a more prosaic reason for this fallout, one I'm a bit more inclined to believe, to be honest, because in 1984, the Medellin cartels suddenly refused to pay La Corporeseon, the 14 gram per kilo of coca paste they'd agree with Suarez, and they drop it down to 9 grand. Suarez isn't a fan of this, to say the least.

In March 1984, Colombian and DEA forces rail. tranquilandia, the Medellín cartel's giant cocaine processing complex. A couple months later, La Corporeseigne cuts ties with Medell all together, and Suarez steles instead to a Colombian narco named Cesar Cano, who's got good routes into the Bahamas and Florida. But in 1985, Medellatine cartel hitmen kill Cano and his bodyguards on the steps of his mother's home in Bogota. Suarez is spooked by this, Fearing he's going to get a dose of Plomor next,

and he winds down La Corporacion, attempted to go legit by processing coca instead into medicinal tea and other fields. But his name is all too associated with the illegal drug trade, which is now infamous for the killings we've all come to know from the cartels, and he can't bootstrap his all-coker trade. At this point you might be wondering, why haven't we heard much about Klaus Barbie? What's going on with his story?

And how are you going to weave two separate narratives that span decades, but whose up and downs don't dovetail neatly at all, and seem like they're a complete nightmare to write about coherently. Yeah, I'm actually wondering the hell out of that, dude. Yeah, well, this is why you tune into a show written by professional wordsmith guys. And by the time Roberto Suarez Gomez is hanging up his jungle boots, Klaus Barbie is already in Europe. Yes, this is the uplifting part of the story,

the bit where the Nazi faces justice, kind of. I mean, you might remember from part one that the Klausfelds, the Nazi hunters, had once teamed up with a Bolivian reporter to kidnap Barbie. Well, that reporter's name is Gustavo Sanchez, and in 1983, the president of Bolivia makes him interior minister. Put the journalists in charge of anything more consequential than this hoster seems like a disaster, but in this case, Sanchez's first mission is to re-up on capturing Barbie

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Prep for summer with Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores. Working with the Klaasfelds, in 1983, Sanchez arrested the German on tax evasion charges, and cops hold him secretly in La Paz. Near midnight on February 3rd, the Bolivians put him on a military plane and flying almost 2,000 miles north to Cayenne, French Guyana, which is the closest French territory. From there, Barbie is whisked aboard a French military jet and dispatched across the Atlantic to France. Here's Sanchez himself writing in a Guardian op-head, quote, When I told him he was going to Leon, he said it cannot be.

At this point, I said to him, yes, you're going back there. Do you remember the French adage which said that criminal always returns to the scene of the crime? don't you remember sending Jews to concentration camps and gas chambers? As you personally killed so many in Leon, you were going back there. But, Bobby said, in war, there are winners and losers. So you lost, I said. It's time to pay. It's nice when you can sort of recant your own anecdotes, but yeah, it's pretty cool. Bobby is 70 years old by this point, and he remains unrepentant for his crimes.

It was war, he says in France, and the war is over. When I stand before the throne of God, he adds, I shall be judged innocent. I mean, what? But while God can't get a conviction, the French authorities can. In 1987, Barbie has found guilty on 41 counts of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Along the way, testimony from his victims captivate France and the world. Here is victim in At Leje, speaking about Barbie's interrogations. Quote, he had the eyes of a monster.

He was savage. my god how savage something unimaginable he broke my teeth he pulled my hair he put a bottle in my mouth pushing until my jaws open with the pressure another woman says that Barbie ordered her to lie flat on her chair and hit her on the back

with a spiked ball on a chain which broke a vertebra it was a beast not a man she says it was terror he took pleasure in it why does every episode you do involve descriptions of torture and why do I spend hours each night on

4chan looking at worst medieval tortures. I don't know. I must be really healthy. This is pretty horrific stuff, of course. And Barbie's orders to send 41 Jewish orphans and 10 adults to Auschwitz in perhaps his most shameful episode, bring the crimes of the Nazis in France back into sharp focus. Here's an excerpt from Peter McFarren's book, The Devil's Agent,

which I used a lot for part one. Quote, The 1987 trial against Klaus Barbie was considered the most important and contemporary French history. It brought to public attention France's complicity with the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, the role played by the French resistance, the dramatic and tragic story of the victims of the Holocaust, and how forces of collective evil and inhumanity were able to prevail against so many and with such horrendous repercussions until the victory of the Allied forces. Barbie gets spinal cancer soon after, and he dies in a French prison cell in 1991, age 77.

incredibly his daughter utah sticks up for her father until the very end i do not see my father as a butcher she says with me he was always a very good father very sweet loving and for me these accusations these defamations are still a consequence of the war for us the war has not finished that is crazy and i could tell you stories about people who've told me similar things in Germany, which is ridiculous. For us, guys, Barbie's story is over, though. But let's get back over to Roberto Suarez, Gomez, the retired king of cocaine for the final act of this week's episode. His star is already long faded by the time the leader of his favorite Nazi henchmen is being sentenced in France. But in 1988, the year after Barbie's incarceration, Suarez's world really

crumbles around him. One of his sons is already in prison in Switzerland. It's hard to keep up with all the Suarez's offspring, given he's supposed to have fathered 18 kids with three women other than his wife. But it's a nephew, Suarez should have really looked out for. And to tee up this mad tale, here is a brilliant lead from a 1988 LA Times piece, quote, under pressure from foreign allies and betrayed by a trusted nephew, the king suddenly tumbles from power. He tries mightily to recover his lost status, but in vain. His fortunes take a final plunge as he is seized by old enemies and locked away. If it weren't about the misfortunes of a South American drug lord, the story might throb with the classical elements of a Greek tragedy. Instead, it oozes with the

sordid drama of a Mafia movie. Now that is good stuff, but not for Suarez. Remember how Escobar's boys had dropped their price in 14K to 9K overnight in 1984 and he switched buyers? Well, not Jorge Rocca, Suarez, the big boss's nephew, nicknamed Tejo de Paha. or straw roof on account of his hair judging by picks I've seen. I mean, if you're British, think Mark Lawrenson, if you're American, early Chuck Norris. Tejo, who grown up in L.A., carries on selling to the Colombians at the low price, drawing some of Roberto Suarez's lieutenants into the deceit. Be your own people, Sean. Be your own people.

It really do, yeah. So Suarez's empire has basically fallen. His own family are usurping him. The Americans don't care about him anymore on the bridegrooms of death, and all the protection and connections they've bought, well, they're long gone too. For Bolivia, this aging narco is an embarrassment at a time when they're desperate for aid and foreign investment. So in 1988, Bolivia National Police raid Suarez's rural hacienda, El Mosquito, discovering half a ton of coca. Suarez is arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison for his crimes.

This is a godfather behind bars, so Suarez hardly lives like a regular pub, but it's what goes on outside prison. that hurts him more. In March 1990, his son Robbie is gunned down by Bolivian and DA agents in Santa Cruz. Slightly less concerning, for him, is that later that year, Tejo is arrested in the US and sentenced to 35 years for a bunch of organised crime-related offences. His story isn't over just yet, but Suarez is almost his. By all accounts, the old man softens with age, his health worsening, and in 1996 he's released on parole for good behaviour. He makes it clear to media that he's, should be called the king of Kulka, not of cocaine. And in July 2000, he tells a TV show that,

quote, the worst mistake I ever made in my life was to have gotten involved in cocaine trafficking. With all his assets seized, Suarez has come full circle, going from one of the most feared drug lords in the world back to being a cattle farmer. I mean, it's interesting though, right? Like, guy was a tugging of the industry, was making bank and still just couldn't turn up the, I guess not easy money, but like the amazing. amount the billions of dollars that that coca production provided like he could have had a pretty good life you know no not to it's just hanging out but then you know he could have had a good life and we never would have heard about him depends depends on what kind of power you want I guess and

I don't know man you know like is he really is that really credible that he's suddenly having this backtrack maybe it is maybe it is I don't know later that month Suarez attempt suicide barricading himself in his room and wielding a gun But an ambulance arrives with doctors who convince him to instead stay at a private clinic. Five days later, on July 22,000, age 68, Suarez dies from a heart attack. Thousand shot for his funeral in Santa Cruz, including his ex-wife, who'd left him when she found out about his involvement in the drug trade, but he stayed friends since. It's nice.

Suarez is buried in a niche in the city of Cochabamba, alongside his son, Robbie. But that's not actually the end of La Corporacion. Because in 2018, after 27 years in prison, Tekel, Swares' treacherous nephew carried on selling to the Colombians, returns to Bolivia to serve out the final 15 years of his sentence. And he escapes almost immediately, causing the Justice Ministry to grant him freedom because they can't be bothered to chase him around the country. It's in his late 60s by this point. Big mistake.

Teco lays low for a couple years that he pops up again in 2020, having re-upped on his contacts to continue shipping coke from Bolivia, this time with a headquarters in Peru. Remember the app from about the shining path a few weeks back. Peru is now ground zero for global coca production. Techo is re-arrested in March 2021 in Lima and sentenced to another 30 years in prison, which, given his 74 these days, might see him die behind bars.

I think the Americans might want extra die him back too, which is fair enough, given he ran away immediately last time. But that really is the end of La Corporecation. on. Bolivian coca production is down compared to its neighbours, partly because of state policies to work with growers rather than crack down on them. I read somewhere that there are crop replacement programs that actually work there, which is, if you listen to this show a bunch, you'll know that is pretty rare. Bolivian coups haven't stopped, though. The last one was in June 2024 and it failed, although Ivo Morales is supposed to be making a comeback, so the next one

could come pretty soon. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. vehicle discount, safe driver discount, uh, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free. The truth is our scene. It's just so beautiful.

On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials, no credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. And that is it, guys, the tale of how a fugitive Nazi, a cattle rancher and Pablo Escobar birthed the modern cocaine trade. Asuarez was right, though. The war on drugs didn't stop the drugs, just stopped him. Pretty crazy, eh? Yeah, I mean, look, dude, when you first told me about the story, I, I mean, I mean, I was just thinking it was going to be a weird one that was hard to get through.

But this is, I mean, this is crazy. Like there's, I feel like there's other episodes. I mean, we've done a bunch of this stuff, right?

God's banker and, and all the narco stuff. But it feels like there's other stuff in here too, you know? Yeah. Yeah, tons. And like with the Castro as well,

like we've done some, like you've done loads of stuff on Cuba. Yeah. I feel that it's even more to be done on how they try to like, they kind of craply tried to get up on the cocaine trade as well. Well, it's just, you know, every, every thread you go through in this, like, you know, Castro's involved, like Iran-Contra, Nazi, it's, it's pretty nuts, but, yeah, have fun.

I mean, the title will be up by the time you guys listen to this, but thinking of a title for this episode, it's going to be a fun one. Yeah, as always, guys, patreon.com slash the honor world podcast for bonuses. I think you're doing one in Korea this week, aren't you, or next week or something like that? I'm going to do one. Yeah, I'm going to try and. get it up in the next like two or three days or so. But yeah, it's hard to meet people here.

It's really tough, man. People don't want to speak to me. Charming guy like you? I find that hard to believe. How dare. We should get a stash house going. Actually, by the time people hear this, one of these will be up. We'll get a stash house going by the end of the month as well. That's been kind of cool. People are sending in stories that want to hear talked about, like the Canadian

Olympian guy who just got tagged again, who they're looking for. It's supposed to have an army of a hitman. someone keeps emailing those stories which is awesome but yeah until next week guys thanks for thanks for tuning in

yeah cheers some follow the noise Bloomberg follows the money whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings there's a money side to every story get the money side of the story

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