Che Guevara's hairs sold for $100,000

DALLAS, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Hairs belonging to Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara were sold at auction for $100,000, The New York Times reported Friday.

The hairs -- accompanied by fingerprints and photos of Guevara taken shortly after his death at the hands of CIA-trained soldiers in Bolivia in 1967 -- were purchased by Bill Butler, a Texas bookstore owner who collects memorabilia from the 1960s.

Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas said it had received death threats over the sale in e-mail messages from Guevara's native country, Argentina.

The items belonged to Gustavo Villoldo, a native of Cuba who had become a CIA agent, the gallery said. He was in Bolivia when Guevara was captured and killed there and served as a liaison between the CIA, the Bolivian government and U.S. Army Rangers.

Guevara, trained as a doctor, became a Marxist and joined Fidel Castro in Cuba in the late 1950s. He left Cuba in the mid-1960s and eventually went to Bolivia, where he was captured and killed in 1967 at age 39.