Immigration Authorities and the Ministry of Security of Costa Rica were able to track 88 foreigners that entered the country by land or air and are linked with organized crime in just 6 weeks and with the help of international alerts.

After the shootout that took place in front of a Costa Rican private school in Guachipelin area that left two people dead, the authorities announced they’d be reinforcing security and expelling foreigners linked to criminal activities.

45 out of the 88 cases are currently under analysis to determine their migratory status, another 33 have already either been denied access or have been expelled from the country. Five foreigners are being tracked by the Costa Rican police, three are particular cases because they are naturalized as Costa Rican and as such migration authorities cannot act against them and another two are under analysis due to particular circumstances.

Gisela Yockchen, Director of Immigration confirmed that 35% of this foreigners linked with organized crimes are from El Salvador, 30% are Colombian, 9% Nicaraguan and the remaining 26% include different nationalities. Gustavo Mata , Minister of Security showed his concern about the number of Salvadorians that have entered the country, since they have confirmed 8 of them have links with criminal gangs in their country.

In 2016 a total of 10,732 foreigners trying to enter the country were rejected, while in just the first six months of 2017 this number was of 8,775. While in 2016 only 393 were deported, in the first semester of 2017 there’s been 306 cases so far.

The Government hopes to strengthen the measures and make them more efficient with an investment of USD $11 million that will be invested in the purchase and implementation of biometric analysis equipment and computer systems in the frontiers and airports. The Government will also be hiring and additional 2500 police officers by May of 2018.