Source: MSP Officers from the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica rescued a school of juvenile sharks estimated to have been born only a few days before getting caught in an illegal fishing net. The rescue took place in the Pacific Ocean, specifically in the Abangares maritime sector of the Gulf of Nicoya, province of Guanacaste. According to an official press release issued by the M...

Officers from the Operational Support Group (Spanish initials: GAO) detained five men suspected of belonging to a criminal group that preyed upon tourists in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica. The gang reportedly used strong-arm robbery tactics on foreign visitors, many of them from North America and Europe, who visited the communities of Cahuita, Manzanillo and Puerto Viejo, all within the Ta...

Source: OIJ On Monday afternoon, undercover agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) arrested a 50-year old man from Colombia after he broke into a car rented by German tourists visiting Costa Rica. The undercover OIJ agents were from the regional office assigned to Jaco Beach and nearby Playa Hermosa. It was at the latter coastal town that they decided to c...

Flickr Commons DOJ Press Release - SAN DIEGO – Just a few hours after murdering his girlfriend in Panama and chopping up her body with a machete, retired Marine Brian Karl Brimager sent an email to a friend: “Hey bro, whatcha up to? I got stories for days. I’m living on an island off the coast of Panama loving life and living semper free!!!!!!” A few days later, after he’d disposed of Y...

Source: City of Key West Miami, May 27 (EFE).- Investigations by authorities in Key West at the southern tip of Florida have succeeded in locating the owner of a car similar to the one used by the Flintstone family in the famous animated television series. The vehicle was about to be towed away because it was parked on a street where no parking was allowed "The owner has been located! Th...

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...

(Archive image for illustrative purposes. OIJ photo) Nine Costa Rica police officers were arrested in a series of 17 coordinated raids by the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) on Thursday, accused of conducting multiple, violent home invasion robberies throughout the greater San Jose metro area. According to investigators, the officers are suspected in at least 10 violent home invasions, ...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) By Marti Quintana. Teotihuacan, Mexico, May 26 (EFE).- Lack of trust in the authorities, a perception of abandonment and a fired-up sense of community led hundreds of residents of a central Mexican town to lynch two suspected kidnappers. All was apparently quiet on Wednesday in the central square of Atlatongo, a town of 5,000 in the central state of M...

Flickr Commons Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal announced today the arrests of forty-six (46) individuals, the execution of forty-six (46) search warrants in three states (New Jersey, New York, and Florida), as well as the seizure of approximately $2,000,000 in U.S. currency. The arrests, search warrants, and seizures are the result of an investigation into a large-scale, multi...

(OIJ Photo) A former official of the Costa Rican Pacific Ports Institute (INCOP) along with three other men were taken into custody after a police raid on a farm in Mogos de Sierpe in Osa, Puntarenas Tuesday afternoon that led to the discovery of some two tons of cocaine, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MSP). Agents from the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) raided the prope...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 23 (EFE).- Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman will not appeal any ruling opening the way for his extradition to the United States, a move approved by the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat last week, if he reaches an agreement with U.S. authorities, defense attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez told EFE. "Joaquin is n...

(Courtesy) COSTA RICA STAR BREAKING NEWS The passport belonging to Cody Roman Dial, a 27-year-old Alaska man who went missing in Costa Rica nearly two years ago, was found amongst human remains discovered in the Corcovado National Park on Friday, authorities in Costa Rica announced shortly before noon on Monday. Cody Roman Dial had been missing since July 22, 2014. The discovery of the r...

(Photo courtesy of the MSP) Authorities in Costa Rica have begun destroying a number of clandestine airstrips used by drug traffickers that were identified during overflights by Costa Rica’s Air Surveillance Service (SVA) over the last several months. The SVA said in April that it had managed to locate 33 such airstrips over a 5-month period alone, most of which authorities said are linked ...

Longline tuna haul. Source: Greenpeace. FAO Media Release - 16 May 2016, Rome - Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is about to become much more difficult thanks to the imminent entry into force of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), a ground-breaking international accord championed by FAO. Now that the required threshold has been reached, with 30 Members having formally...

Police officers stand guard next to a company list showing the Mossack Fonseca law firm outside their office in Panama City April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso Montevideo, May 20 (EFE).- The Panama Papers are "the tip of the iceberg" with respect to offshore companies, according to Panamanian financial expert Julio Aguirre, who said Friday that the massive leak of Mossack Fonseca's documents ...

Flickr Commons LinkedIn, the largest business-oriented social platform and one of the most popular social networks in the world, is warning members about a major data breach and is forcing a massive reset of passwords as a security measure. An update posted to the LinkedIn corporate blog yesterday explained the situation: In 2012, LinkedIn was the victim of an unauthorized access and discl...

Source: US SOUTHCOM Lima, May 13 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Colombia has won a competition involving 20 special operations teams from across the Americas, with Honduras and Peru coming in second and third place, respectively, military officials said. Despite a Constitutional abolishment of her military that dates back to 1949, Costa Rica has been sending tactical p...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) San Salvador, May 10 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- El Salvador's murder rate so far in 2016 exceeds 38 per 100,000 inhabitants, well above the rate in several neighboring Central American countries, such  as Costa Rica, for all of 2015, according to official figures released on Tuesday. According to information provided by police d...

Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika are spread by the Aedes aegyptie mosquito (Wikimedia Commons) The number of patients confirmed to be infected with the Zika virus in the popular coastal resort city of Jacó, on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast, has soared to 28 this week in the most serious outbreak of the Zika virus in Costa Rica to date. A total of 17 additional cases have been confirmed si...

(Photo: EFE via El Mundo) Colombian police Sunday said they had seized eight tons of cocaine from the country’s most active criminal syndicate, the Usuga clan. In a statement, police said they found the drugs hidden on a banana plantation near the border with Panama, in Colombia’s northwest Uraba region. "The biggest seizure of drugs in history. A hit against criminals," Colombian Presid...

A municipal health worker fumigates the restroom area of a shopping mall as part of the city's effort to prevent the spread of Zika virus' vector, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in this January 26, 2016 file photo. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera/Files A spray fumigation team from the Ministry of Public Health (Spanish initials: MSP) rushed to the Temporary Detention Center for Fo...

Source: Wikimedia Commons BATON ROUGE, LA - United States Attorney Walt Green announced today that a federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging CHRISTOPHER G. YOUNG, age 53, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography. According to the Indictment, YOUNG was the part-owner of a hotel in the country of Costa Rica, where he ...

YouTube Commons Lima, May 9 (EFE).- The Cuzco Decentralized Culture Directorate reported Monday that vandals had painted eight graffiti with aerosols on five streets of the historic center of that ancient Inca city, which they called a crime against culture. The graffiti were sprayed on the stone walls with black paint to form the word "KOYOS 16," at a height of approximately 40 centimeters...

The Italian man's vehicle was left with its doors wide open in a Walmart parking lot after police officers allegedly abducted the man. (OIJ photo) An Italian man remained missing in Costa Rica on Monday and authorities are releasing few details in the strange case of the man’s disappearance and suspected kidnapping from the parking lot of a Walmart in San Francisco de Heredia on Saturday. T...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 8 (EFE).- Mexican authorities shut down a Web site that posted erotic pictures of minors and extorted them in exchange for removing the photos, the Attorney General's Office, or PGR, reported Sunday. Two people have been arrested so far for their association with the network operating in the southern states of Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, the head o...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) Caracas, May 6 (EFE).- Venezuelan politician German Mavare, leader of the opposition UNT party, died Friday after being shot in the head, an assassination that occurred in the western state of Lara, his organization said. "The board of the UNT expresses its deepest sorrow for the slaying of colleague German Mavare. We demand justice and an end to violenc...

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...

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 that ARTHUR BUDOVSKY, 42, was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to 20 years in prison for running a massive money laundering enterprise through his company Liberty Reserve, a virtual currency once used...

Agents with Costa Rica’s Drug Control Police (PCD) raided a marijuana grow house in Escazu on Thursday and arrested a 55-year-old Cuban national identified by the last name Ruiz. Agents said that the suspect was growing a highly potent variety of genetically modified marijuana plants, known in Latin America as “crippy.” The raid occurred around noon on Thursday. PCD agents confiscated nu...

Nelson Sanderson was returned to the United States in Wednesday in the company of agents of the U.S. Marshals service. He faces two life sentences if convicted. (Handout) A 75-year-old Florida man who had been on the run since a warrant for his arrest was issued in July 2012 on charges of child molestation was returned to Florida in the company of U.S. Marshals agents on Wednesday after being ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons The family of a 63-year old man from the United States, who passed away under mysterious circumstances in April, are asking that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents become involved in the case. According to a news report filed by Luke Roberts of the Douglas Enterprise earlier this week, Mitch McCrimmon did not survive a coma that placed him in the hospital from ...

Cody Dial On May 22nd, cable television network National Geographic will broadcast the premiere of Missing Dial, a documentary series on the disappearance of explorer Cody Roman Dial,  a college student from the United States who arrived in Costa Rica with adventure in his mind. Cody intended to hike across Corcovado National Park in our Southern Pacific region; he has been missing since Ju...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) Oliver Meißner, a 30-year old German tourist who checked into a small beachfront in Costa Rica two weeks ago, was found dead in his cabin on Monday morning. According to a recent news report by Alexander Mendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, hotel staff had seen Mr. Meißner alive for the last time on Saturday night. Mr. Mendez explained that hotel sta...

Source: Saprissa Oficial Twitter David Guzman, a talented midfielder who has previously been called up to play for the National Football Team of Costa Rica, spent Sunday night in jail after a quarrel with an expat fan. According to a news report filed by Gustavo Arias, Steven Oviedo and Daniel Jimenez of national newspaper La Nacion, Mr. Guzman got into an altercation with a fan during a fa...

Source: Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Apr 26 (EFE).- Puerto Rican drug agents on Tuesday found a caiman inside an abandoned apartment in the San Juan district of Rio Piedras while they were carrying out monitoring operations in the area. The Puerto Rico police issued a statement saying that the agents also found two ammunition clips and many rounds of ammo in the apartment. The officers tu...

Female prisoners in Costa Rica visit with their children. (Photo courtesy of the OIJ. ICR-CRS Archive, 2013) Costa Rica’s National Institute for Women (INAMU), the ministerial-level institution charged with the protection of women in society, is urging lawmakers in Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly to pass a bill that seeks to eliminate criminal records for women and greatly reduce them for me...

Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Apr 24 (EFE).- Colombian and U.S. authorities seized 1,850 kilograms of cocaine in two operations conducted in Guatemalan and Salvadoran waters, arresting four Ecuadorians and two Colombians, Bogota authorities reported Sunday. The first anti-drug operation was carried out in Guatemalan waters by Colombia's Dijin and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, suppor...

Source: Wikimedia Commons On April 15, the Rhode Island State Police and the Attorney General announced the arrest of 19 men and one woman on charges relating to the management of a statewide criminal gambling organization and a marijuana distribution operation that extended to Costa Rica. The arrests were the result of an 8-month investigation led by members of the State Police Intelligenc...

Illustrative image. (Flickr) A 33-year old Canadian tourist passed away in a boutique luxury hotel in the capital city of Costa Rica on Thursday afternoon, and investigators are trying to determine whether foul play may have contributed to his tragic demise. According to a news report filed by Alexander Melendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the Canadian man has been identified as Danny Be...

Wikimedia Commons Forensic investigators from the medical examiner's office in Costa Rica are trying to determine the ophidian species that killed a 46-year old woman in a remote area of Los Chiles canton, province of Alajuela. According to a news report filed by Alexander Mendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the woman was a student at the Unified Center of Adult Education (Spanish acronym...