By Wendy Anders MSP file photo Monday, the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) arrested seven more members of a marijuana cultivation and distribution network based in Costa Rica’s southern Perez Zeledón region, stated Walter Espinoza, OIJ Director, in a press conference yesterday. The operation was led by five brothers by the last names Vargas Hidalgo who 21 years ago almost to th...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) A Japanese man, arrested last weekend for allegedly stabbing his 12-year-old son to death, told the police he did it because the child was not studying for his secondary level exams, the police said Tuesday.   The accused, Kengo Satake, 48, a transporter from Nagoya city was taken for interrogation after his arrest, a police spokesperson told loc...

By Wendy Anders This morning in Geneva, Switzerland, Costa Rica’s Security Minister Gustavo Mata reiterated Costa Rica’s wholesale commitment to the effective implementation of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a multilateral treaty regulating international trade in conventional weapons, according to the United Nations website that entered into force in Dec...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís and U.S. Navy Adm. Kurt Tidd, commander of U.S. Southern Command, greet each other prior to the opening ceremony for the Central American Security Conference April 7 in San Jose. Photo by Jose Ruiz, SOUTHCOM Today President Obama and Vice President Biden received Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis at the White House. Enc...

By Wendy Anders Police carried out a multi-town operative Saturday night in Guanacaste Province's counties of Santa Cruz and Carrillo to “recuperate public spaces and return them to the community,” stated Costa Rica's Public Security Ministry in a press document Sunday. Officials were aided in their efforts in the towns of Belén, Playas del Coco, Playa Hermosa and Santa Cruz by the police's ...

Source: OIJ On Friday afternoon, agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) raided a home in San Miguel of Naranjo, a coffee-producing region located in the province of Alajuela. The raid was the culmination of a week-long investigation related to crimes against the archaeological record of Costa Rica. According to an official press release issued by OIJ, agen...

Cartoon by Clay Jones The US Olympic Committee (USOC) today publicly acknowledged that four of its swimmers made a false police report and created a story of being held at gunpoint and apologized to the organization of the Olympic Games and Brazil for the swimmers behavior. "The behavior of these athletes is not acceptable, nor does it represent the values of Team USA or the conduct of the ...

By Wendy Anders Source: Wikimedia Commons Wednesday police responded to an alert received on their free anonymous report line, 1176, regarding suspicious activity in a house in San Antonio de Escazú, a mountainous suburb west of San José, according to official sources. The Security Ministry’s anti-drug police reported discovering hydroponic marijuana being cultivated by a 60-year-old U.S...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) A 45-year old man survived a shooting that took place just outside of the Del Rey Hotel, a major sexual tourism hotspot in Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by Esteban Mora of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the man was identified by the last name Fonseca. He is reportedly a taxi driver whose workday often includes parking at the Hotel Del Rey and...

Olympic mascots are seen at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, Feb. 7, 2016. (Reuters OMX) Members of the U.S. Olympic swimming team fabricated their story about being robbed at gunpoint and got into an altercation with security guards at a gas station in Barra da Tijuca, the section of Rio de Janeiro where the Olympic Park is located, Brazilian police said. Ryan Lochte, James F...

By Wendy Anders The country’s Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría de los Habitantes, in Spanish) felt the need to intervene in a troubling situation in which 12 ocelots have been killed on Costa Rica’s roads since January, pointing out that there are also human risks involved with wild animals crossing roads. Although the need for special passageways for wild animals to cross highways has been cl...

File photo The ex-United States National Security Agency operative who was responsible for the largest-ever leak of top-secret intelligence files has hinted Russia could have been behind a possible cyber attack on the American agency. Edward Snowden, who was granted political asylum in Russia, said there was evidence to suggest NSA servers were the victims of a Russian-inspired malware atta...

"El chapo Guzmán" por Fabrizio León Diez - Obra do próprio. Licenciado sob CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons A son of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman is among six people kidnapped at a restaurant in this Pacific resort city, Jalisco state Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer said Tuesday. An examination of items found in the cars of the victims, sitting abandoned in the ...

MS-13 tattoo (El Salvador) - Wikimedia Commons The governments of the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) will create a tri-national force to combat organized crime, with a special target on gangs, following an agreement signed Saturday in the Salvadoran capital by defense and security authorities. The proposal, called "Elite Security Group" was sugges...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s anti-drug police took to the verdant Talamanca mountains this week with their machetes in hand and destroyed an estimated half a million marijuana plants camuflauged in dense vegetation. The 3.6-square kilometer area held 48 different marijuana plantations in the indigenous villages of Manzanillo, Alto y Bajo Bley, Cerro Papayo, Arco Iris, Bajo Piedra Meza, Tortu...

By Wendy Anders Pedestrian deaths are the second largest type of traffic-related deaths registered in Costa Rica this year, reported the Transportation Ministry today. Of the 42 pedestrian deaths reported so far this year, the ministry claims 37, or 88 percent, could have been prevented by people using pedestrian aerial bridges or crosswalks within close walking distance from where they deci...

By Wendy Anders At ten this morning, the country’s public service regulator, Roberto Jiménez, received taxi sector leaders as they demanded to be heard one more time on the issue of Uber’s legality in the country. Jiménez reiterated that his agency, the Aresep, has done everything in its power to regulate public transportation services, and that any further decisions are pending court decisi...

Wikimedia Commons An unusual legislative proposal by a group of female legislators in Costa Rica would send an adult five years older than his or her sex partner to jail. According to a recent news report filed by Bharley Quiros, a reporter covering the Legislative Assembly beat for La Prensa Libre (the oldest news publication in operation in Costa Rica), the proposal seeks to amend the Cri...

By Wendy Anders Border police of Panama In recent days, an estimated 400 irregular migrants slipped over from Panama to Costa Rica in the Paso Canoas border area. They are being registered and receiving lodging at the border, said Mauricio Herrera, communication minister, in a statement to Monumental Radio Saturday. Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata spoke to Monumental Radio this wee...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) A man believed to be responsible for the murder, necrophilia and corpse desecration of two women at a love motel in Costa Rica was arrested just as he was planning to flee to Nicaragua on foot. According to a recent news report filed by Gustavo Retana of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the suspect has been identified by the last names of Núñez Rubí. He check...

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...

A river in Costa Rica Three tourists from the United States, including a little boy, were mortally caught in a flash river flood near Hacienda Guachipelín, one of the most luxurious and exclusive country resorts of Costa Rica. According to a news report recently filed by Manuel Estrada of daily tabloid Diario Extra, four relatives were enjoying a pristine swimming spot at the river located ...

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...

By Wendy Anders Mexican soldiers fighting the Drug War. Wikimedia Commons A recent political analysis of the region raises questions about the continuation of a militarized approach to illegal drug trafficking in an era where the decades long US sponsored “war on drugs” has been repeatedly called a failure. From 2004-2014 the United States provided $768 million in police and military aid...

Source: Wikimedia Commons An expert on aircraft accidents said the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board, was deliberately crashed into the Indian Ocean, Australian media reported Monday. "Somebody was flying the airplane at the end of its flight ... Somebody was flying the airplane into the water," Larry Vance, who investigated the Swissai...

By Wendy Anders Merrit Island, Florida resident, Sondra Lynn Payne Elizondo, was found dead in her hotel room in San José, Costa Rica last December. Last week the prime suspect in the case, Alejandro Obando Vega, was ordered three more months in prison by the San José Criminal Court while the case continues to be investigated, reported the judicial branch press office Friday. As previousl...

Source: Flickr CC Theft, robberies, fraud, and crimes related to drug trafficking are a very serious threat to diplomats, expats and tourists from the United States who travel to Costa Rica. Such is the main warning found within the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) 2016 report for Costa Rica. The OSAC serves the U.S. Bureau of Diplomatic Security; nonetheless, its reports are share...

Juliana Lopez Sarrazola. Source: Miss World Colombia 2015 Juliana Lopez Sarrazola, a 22-year old Colombian bikini model and beauty queen who at one point faced the death penalty in the People{s Republic of China, will instead spend 15 years in prison. According to a wire report by Agencia EFE, MNiss Lopez plead guilty to one count of cocaine smuggling. In the criminal court trial, Miss Lope...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) Law enforcement officers in Costa Rica are currently engaged in a manhunt for Nicaraguan farmer believed to have carried out a gruesome murder in the Chontales Department. The suspect’s name is Herner José Galeano, and his last known whereabouts place him in the rural canton of San Carlos, province of Alajuela.   According to a recent news report...

Source; RCMP Human remains found by municipal workers in Vancouver Island are those of a 40-year old surfer from Costa Rica who had been missing for more than a month. According to a recent news report filed by Sarah Petrescu of the Times Colonist, the oldest newspaper in Western Canada, Marlon Orozco-Castillo was reported missing by his family after a dispute. The surfer was dealing with p...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) The probe into last week's coach fire which killed 26 people - including 24 Chinese tourists - took an abrupt turn on Friday when prosecutors announced that the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol and could have drunken alcohol to commit suicide. "Tests of the blood, urine and stomach residue of driver Su Ming-cheng showed that his blood al...

By Wendy Anders In today's early morning hours off Cabo Blanco at the southernmost tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, the Costa Rican Coast Guard reported the seizure of nearly 2,300 kilos of cocaine. This latest illegal drug capture makes for nearly 10 tons of cocaine seized by police since January, according to office police sources. Twelve ships transporting illegal drugs from Jamaica and Co...

Source: Policia Civil do Rio de Janeiro Brazilian police seized a small shipment of both powder and crack cocaine packaged in bags bearing the Olympic rings and the logo of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, authorities said Tuesday. The drug was in plastic bags marked with the Olympic lettering, the stamp identifying the point of sale and a warning to "keep away from children," according to in...

The lifeless body of a retired English language educator, who had gone missing for more than two weeks, was recently found in a remote area of Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by rural reporter Eddis Gomez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the departed teacher has been identified as Santiago Salguera Hernandez, who was 67 years old when he went missing in the village of Chimurria, part...

Photo from one of various Twitter accounts attributed to Caro QuinteroMexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, a fugitive from justice since 2013, said in an interview with Proceso magazine that he did not kill U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena in 1985 and denied that he was trying to grab control of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Caro Quintero, considered one of Mexico's mo...

PublicDomainPicture.NetA deranged and dangerous homeless man kept dogs as sexual slaves under a bridge in Costa Rica. According to a recent news report filed by Gustavo Retana of daily tabloid Diario Extra, officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, were alerted to the situation by neighbors who could not sleep at night due to the bloodcurdling howls coming from und...

IOM’s virtual learning platform on migration addresses human trafficking. Photo: IOM/ María del Mar Gonzalez 2016Costa Rica - IOM has trained a group of 35 Mesoamerican counter trafficking specialists as trainers for its Virtual Course on Trafficking in Persons (TiP) developed for the region. The training, which took place in Costa Rica on 20 and 21 July ahead of the World Day Against Traffick...

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: MSPOfficers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, evacuated a section of Tamarindo Beach after a visitor from the United States was mutilated by a terrible bite from a large reptile. The incident took place on Monday morning near the estuary of this Costa Rica coastal community, which is very popular among North American and European tourists and expats. The vi...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons)Journalist Pedro Tamayo has been shot dead at his home in the Mexican Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the Aztec nation's deadliest for members of the media, officials said Thursday. Two assailants arrived late Wednesday in a vehicle at the crime reporter's home in the town of Tierra Blanca, fired at him in front of his family and then fled the scene. The 43...