In his prime, Suárez made $400 million annually, was one of the major suppliers of the Medellín Cartel as well as the leader of the largest Bolivian drug empire, and was considered to be the biggest cocaine producer in the world.

Fidel and Raúl charged millions of dollars per day in exchange for giving coverage to cocaine trafficking and the use of airports for refueling airplanes.

The coup installed a dictatorship in 1980, in which Luis García Meza would be president and Suárez's cousin Luis Arce Gómez was Minister of the Interior, and so he received political protection for his enterprise[2] Arce Gómez ordered the killings of many Bolivians, including union leaders and intellectuals such as Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz.

[13] In a letter to Ronald Reagan in 1983, Suárez offered to pay Bolivia's foreign debt of more than $3 billion if he and his son received amnesty.

Also at the time, while among international drug traffickers Suárez was known to be the biggest purveyor of coca base (raw product) and cocaine on earth, he was entirely unknown to the DEA, who at first would not authorize Levine spending any funds on the operation.

[16] Subsequently, on the basis of Levine's book, on March 3, 2011, Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled the DEA from all operations in Bolivia.

[citation needed] On July 20, 1988, Suárez was arrested by the Bolivian National Police and his hacienda was raided; more than one and a half tons of cocaine was found.

[17] His nephew and successor, Jorge Roca Suárez (known as "Techo de Paja"), was also serving a 30-year sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.

[18] During his time in prison, Suárez was said to have shown regret for his crimes, had found religious faith in jail and preferred to be photographed next to images of Jesus Christ.

[23] Suárez's son, Roberto "Robby" Levy, was killed by Bolivian police and DEA agents on March 22, 1990, in Santa Cruz.

[8][14][25] Weeks before his death, in a TV interview, Suárez expressed remorse for his crimes and stated "The worst mistake I ever made in my life was to have gotten involved in cocaine trafficking".