Next up for auction, Che Guevara's hair

MIAMI (Reuters) - A former CIA operative who says he helped hunt down Ernesto "Che" Guevara and bury him in Bolivia 40 years ago now hopes to make a killing from the famed Argentine revolutionary's hair.

Gustavo Villoldo, 71, a Cuban exile who says he was a major player in Guevara's capture in the Bolivian jungle, plans to auction off a strand of Guevara's hair and other items, kept in a scrapbook since the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission ended in Guevara's death in 1967.

"I'm doing it for history's sake and to have closure. This is a very unique piece," Villoldo said of his scrapbook.

"Guevara is, I would say, the world's leading recognized figure," he said. "To me the clipping of his hair, psychologically for me, for myself, meant that I was cutting off one of the symbols of the revolution, the long hair."

Guevara, a leading figure of the Cuban Revolution often seen as rivaling Fidel Castro, has been regarded as a martyred hero of radicalism by generations of leftists.

Villoldo said he expected the scrapbook -- which includes a map used to track down Guevara and photographs of his body -- to fetch as much as $7 million when it hits the auction block in Texas on October 25.