Che Guevara, The Spanish Foreign Legion And Pablo Escobar’s Airborne Scammers
During Barbie’s time in South America, some exciting new opportunities began opening up in the Bolivian economy. Back in 1951, cocaine use was largely restricted to jazz musicians trying to persuade themselves scatting was a good idea. But by the 1970s, it seemed like the whole world was honking on the old nose trombone. In 1977 alone, every single person in New York City stayed up for three days straight, then got thrown out of Studio 54 for trying to persuade David Bowie to invest in a disco-themed fondue restaurant called Fundue. Of course, this was all great news for Bolivian farmers, who already grew most of the world’s coca crop. With production skyrocketing, Bolivia’s coca trade soon came to be dominated by a wealthy cattle rancher turned drug trafficker named Roberto Suarez Gomez.
Unfortunately, Bolivia had kind of missed the boat when it came to actually producing cocaine. Instead, Suarez found himself stuck in the role of middleman, buying semi-refined coca paste from Bolivian farmers and selling it on to Colombian cartels, who turned it into cocaine and shipped it overseas. With the rise of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel, Suarez found himself increasingly getting pushed around. Not only did Escobar keep most of the profits, but his pilots had an annoying habit of loading a plane full of valuable coca paste and then taking off without paying, presumably leaving Suarez standing on the runway shaking his fist and yelling, “This isn’t even funny anymore guys!” So Suarez started looking around for some muscle. And who should be lurking around Bolivia but well-known “security consultant” Klaus Barbie.