On a recent Wednesday afternoon, my landlady knocked on my door and asked me if I had deposited the monthly rent payment corresponding to January. I told her I had the full payment in cash in my wallet since early January, but I was purposely waiting to deposit until the 19th day of the month, the day after her visit. She told me not to bother making the payment because she had rented the house to...

"Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Costa Rican women and children are subjected to sex trafficking within the country, with those living in the north and central Pacific coastal zones being particularly vulnerable.” These are the first sentences of the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report by the U.S....

By Wendy Anders If your house or condominium is valued at more than $231,000 you likely are required to pay an annual tax to the Costa Rican treasury, reported tax officials this week. Homeowners have until January 16 to pay their 2017 dues. Forms are available online to declare and submit payment at www.hacienda.go.cr or at public banks. Houses valued from $231,000 (126 million colone...

An unnamed company described in a sweeping probe of corruption in soccer's world governing body FIFA matches the description of a close affiliate of Grupo Televisa, the largest broadcaster in Latin America,according to a Reuters review of U.S. and Swiss government documents. In court papers filed on Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors said an affiliate of a major broadcasting company headquartered in La...

By Wendy Anders University students in Nicoya, Guanacaste. On Tuesday, Costa Rican Legislator Luis Vásquez of the Social Christian Party (PUSC, in Spanish) filed a motion against Education Minister Sonia Marta Mora in the Constitutional Court, reported Elmundo.cr, a Costa Rican digital news source. The Legislator claims that requiring high school students to take mandatory admission test...

Dentons and Muñoz Global approve combination to create first global law firm in Central America The partners of Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, and Costa Rica-based Muñoz Global have agreed to combine to create the first global law firm with offices in Central America. The combination will enable Muñoz Global clients to access the experience of more than 7,600 lawyers and 13,600 peopl...

Dentons to be first global law firm with offices in Central America PRESS RELEASE : Proposed combination with Muñoz Global would unite world’s largest law firm and regional leader with offices in Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua November 15, 2016: Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, announced it would become the first global law firm with offices in Central America if a proposed combin...

By Wendy Anders Children in Costa Rica, photo for illustrative purposes. The Costa Rican Supreme Court recently ruled that jail is a reasonable consequence for those who fail to pay child support in Costa Rica due to the “exceptional nature of the obligation,” reported CRHoy.com. Magistrates said the 6-month jail term for those who lapse in their payments is reasonable, and upheld the m...

By Wendy Anders 2016 Wider Caribbean Region Rule of Law Index rankings, World Justice Project. The Washington, D.C.-based World Justice Project (WJP) just published its ranking of countries throughout the world on a Rule of Law Index that measures how people view justice in their everyday life. Of the 22 countries in the Central America and wider Caribbean region included in this year’s ...

By Wendy Anders An appeal to the Costa Rican Supreme Court on an article of the Family Code regarding men’s role as prime breadwinners for their families was struck down recently, reported El Diario Extra, Costa Rica’s main Spanish tabloid paper. The appeal claimed Article 35 of the country’s Family Code violates the country’s constitution and also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights b...

When you are planning to travel to a country you’ve never been before one of the first questions that arise is do I need a Visa? And if the plan is moving to a different country and establish your residency there, a bunch of new questions come to mind regarding migration policies. The problem is that these are never easy questions to answer, since the conditions for entering the country and more ...

Eduardo Li, former president of the Costa Rica Football Federation, along with other seven FIFA officials, will likely  face trial November 6th, 2017 . Fifty-seven year old Li was arrested in May 27, 2015 in Switzerland and is accused of accepting kickbacks and bribes for the commercialization of marketing and broadcasting rights of the elimination games of the Costa Rican male National Soccer Tea...

By Wendy Anders 03-09-14 Piñera Agrovicces, La Unión del Amparo, Los Chiles de Alajuela Inspección del Tribunal Ambiental Administrativo a Piñeras de la zona para verficar cumplimiento de medidas cautelares y abrir nuevos expedientes Juan Sánchez, Biólogo especialista en manglares y humedales del Tribunal Ambiental Administrativo Foto: LUIS NAVARRO In July, the Municipal Council of Los Chil...

Establishing a business enterprise in Costa Rica is a fairly straightforward process that has considerable immigration benefits for foreigners. Many foreign investors feel empowered to expand their businesses and make them profitable once they are residents; a few of them, however, choose to ignore national labor laws and hire foreign employees without the adequate immigration permits. The lega...

Police officers stand guard at the entrance of the Mossack Fonseca law firm office in Panama City April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso American Joseph Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, has quit an expert commission the Panamanian government created on April 30 to evaluate the country's financial system in the wake of the Panama Papers leak, officials said. Swiss e...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ('FBI'), William J. Bratton, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department ('NYPD'), and James A. McCarty, Acting District Attorney for Westchester...

File photo Of all countries in the Americas, Costa Rica is one of the most friendly to foreign investors, particularly in terms of immigration. Immigration law in Costa Rica allows foreigners to invest $200,000 so that they can obtain the benefit of residency. The investment can be in a property, lot, business, shares in a corporation, etc., and the amount can be various investments that ad...

Wikimedia CommonsThis afternoon, following a two week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, returned a guilty verdict against Gregorio and Angelo Gigliotti for their operation of a transnational cocaine trafficking operation that stretched from Italy, to Queens and to Costa Rica. Gregorio Gigliotti was also convicted of possessing a stash of firearms in connection with the operation. Whe...

Source; UNHCR On 6 and 7 July 2016, the Organization of American States and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, will convene in San José, Costa Rica, a high-level roundtable meeting on refugees and displaced people from the Northern Triangle of Central America and the urgent need to find solutions to this growing protection situation. The two-day event in San José, the first international meeting...

Pixabay Commons Of all immigration proceedings available to foreigners in Costa Rica, the process of getting a work permit for employees is one of the most Byzantine. What makes getting work permits in Costa Rica so complicated is that more than one government agency is involved in the process. The Directorate of Immigration and the Ministry of Labor must review the applications before they...

Source: Fuerza Publica Even after a press conference, questions remain about the escape and subsequent capture of John Wesley Saatio, a registered sex offender from the United States who managed to escape from a detention cell in Costa Rica a couple of days ago. Mr. Saatio was taken into custody by Fuerza Publica officers on foot patrol in San Miguel of Desamparados, not far from the workin...

Source: Fuerza Publica A scene straight out of a circus strongman act unfolded in Costa Rica about 10 days ago. John Wesley Saatio, a citizen of the United States, tried to bend the prison bars of the cell he was thrown into after an investigation by a neighborhood watch group and police in the coastal community of Jaco Beach. According to an official press release issued by Fuerza Publica,...

Many suspects awaiting trial are housed alongside convicted criminal in Costa Rica's La Reforma Prison, pictured. (ICR/CRS Archive) The National Association of Criminology Researchers (Spanish acronym: ANIC) is trying to file a lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice in Costa Rica over the release of nearly 6,000 convicted criminals who can no longer be housed by the national prison system. ...

Flickr Commons Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced last Friday that six men from Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island have been variously charged in a 37-count indictment for running an illegal Internet gambling operation that took over $13 million in wagers on various professional and collegiate sporting events and wired payments to an off-shore location. District Attorney Thom...

  "All homeowners are investors at heart" is an expression often heard in certain real estate circles, and in Costa Rica this is something that extends to the process of legal immigration. In general, foreigners and their immediate family (spouse, parents and children) can apply for residency if the applicant has investments worth USD $200,000 in Costa Rica. The types of investment shou...

Close up of a Marijuana plant flowering during the final stages of growth. EFE/file The return of Daniel Fowlie Briggs, a marijuana smuggler from the United States who spent more than 15 years in prison, is being cited as one of several blunders that led to the termination of Kathya Rodriguez, Director of Immigration in Costa Rica. President Luis Guillermo Solis, who appointed former Direct...

Wikimedia Commons San Francisco, Apr 14 (EFE).- Microsoft Corp. filed a lawsuit Thursday against the U.S. Justice Department, challenging so-called secrecy orders that bar the company from notifying its customers when the government has reviewed their e-mails and other data. The tech giant says in the suit that it has received 5,624 requests from the government for customer information or d...

Flickr Commons Getting deported from Costa Rica can be a terrifying experience, but it can be managed with skilled legal representation. Deportation is one of the most potentially worrisome situations for foreigners residing in Costa Rica. The forcible removal of a person from one nation to another is a very upsetting condition that leaves individuals completely powerless over their own liv...

Source: York University York University News Release - Over the past three years, Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) Professor Felipe Montoya and his family have been waiting for a response from Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) on their application for permanent residency. However, the Montoya family was recently deemed inadmissible for permanent residency because 13-year-old ...

Source: Alfredo Guzman Twitter Mexico City, Apr 4 (EFE).- A Mexican government contractor, a former CEO of state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and an associate of notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman are some of the individuals whose names appear in the Panama Papers. Mexican media outlets Aristegui Noticias and Proceso magazine, part of the International ...

EFE/File Washington, Apr 3 (EFE).- The largest journalistic leak in history, which came to light on Sunday with the participation of the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, suggests that 140 politicians and officials from around the globe, including 72 former and current world leaders, have connections with secret "offshore" companies to escape tax scrutiny ...

(Apple press photo) Cupertino, California, Mar 21 (EFE).- Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook vowed Monday that his company would not shirk its responsibility to protect its users' privacy, calling it an issue that affects everyone. "We did not expect to be in this position, at odds with our own government. But we believe strongly that we have a responsibility to help you protect your data and protect ...

Source: MGP Costa Rica According to statistics reported by the Civil Registry of Costa Rica, less than 69,000 naturalized citizens were properly registered in 2014. When considering the number of foreigners living in Costa Rica under various legal statuses such as temporary residents, permanent residents and perpetual tourists, those who chose the naturalization path are the minority.  ...

Wikimedia Commons OAS Media Release - Washington, D.C. - The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed an application with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Case 12.798, Gómez Murillo and others, with regard to Costa Rica. The case has to do with the violations of the rights to humane treatment, personal liberty, private and family life, to raise a family and to equa...

The partners and staff of Arias & Muñoz. Ms. Castro is at front center. Arias & Muñoz, a prestigious law firm located in San José, congratulates Dr. Alejandra Castro Bonilla on her new position as Head of Legal, Patents & Compliance with Bayer Central America and The Caribbean, a regional operation of global Life Sciences giant Bayer AG. This regional office, serving the needs of C...

InfoBAE screenshot reporting on the incident Buenos Aires, Feb 7 (EFE).- Former Miss Argentina Rocio Fiorella Santa Cruz has been barred from leaving the country by federal judicial officials in Posadas, the capital of the northeastern Argentine province of Misiones, after she was allegedly involved in a traffic accident that caused the death of a transit inspector who was riding a motorcycle,...

Enoc and Dr. Rosemary SylvesterBradley of ChocoPrisma. Photo: Bryan Fabio Herrera By Carol Blair Vaughn This interview was conducted on January 29th, 2016, at Bazookas Restaurant in Perez Zeledon, after a meeting of a club for English speakers (CCRC), at which Enoc Jimenez was the guest speaker.  The Ngobe Indigenous straddle the Costa Rica – Panama border, and trace their lineage back to a...

Founder and Senior Partner Marcela Gurdian Earlier this year, the pretty Caribbean nation of St. Lucia in the Windward Isles officially started accepting applications for its “citizenship by investment” program. Located to the south of Martinique and more than 2,500 kilometers from Costa Rica, St. Lucia is part of the Commonwealth of Nations, and is now the latest country to offer economic cit...

Flickr Commons U.S. Dept of Justice Press Release - Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, announced today that ARTHUR BUDOVSKY pled guilty to running a massive money laundering enterprise in connection with his operation of Liberty Reserve, a virtual cur...

Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jan 28 (EFE).- Mexican authorities sent the U.S. teenager who used an "affluenza" court defense after killing four people while driving drunk in Texas back to the United States to face court proceedings. "Ethan Couch, who entered at the Las Agujas immigration station ... after being found to be in an irregular administrative situation, was transferred this mornin...