WASHINGTON, DC – Illicit financial flows from developing and emerging economies surged to  US$1.1 trillion in 2013, according to a study released Wednesday by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advisory organization. Authored by GFI Chief Economist Dev Kar and GFI Junior Economist Joseph Spanjers, the report pegs cumulative illicit outflows from developing econom...

Source: Facebook This past weekend, a drug interdiction operation carried out by security forces in Nicaragua ended up with a shootout, a suicide, and several arrests, which include the detention of a lingerie model from Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by entertainment reporter Ariel Chaves Gonzalez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the lingerie model has been identified as Adriana C...

Source: MSP In the eastern suburbs of San Jose, officers from Fuerza Publica (the national police force of Costa Rica) rescued a snowman that had been illegally taken from a second floor balcony. The incident occurred past the midnight hour of Friday, and it unfolded in the residential community of Los Olimpos, located in the Purral district of the Goicochea canton. According to official pr...

Source: Flickr Commons The discovery of human remains on an urban riverbank and on a remote beach in the Pacific coast have alarmed residents of two communities in Costa Rica. As reported by Alexander Mendez, Allan Chacon and Jorge Sancho for daily tabloid Diario Extra, the body of a male was found on an urban section of the Virilla River and a human torso was unearthed by high tide on a Nicoy...

Facebook Agents from the Office of Judicial investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) arrested various individuals reportedly involved in a marijuana smuggling run from the Caribbean region to the capital city of Costa Rica. Among the arrested was Veronica Ariza Anchia, a curvy model who is well-known in the popular lingerie show circuit in Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by Danie...

Source: Facebook Culiacan, Mexico, Dec 1 (EFE).- The burned van found with two bodies inside in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa last month belonged to the two Australian surfers reported missing in the area, state officials said. The van was found on Nov. 21 in the city of Navolato and investigators suspect that the bodies found in the vehicle are those of Dean Lucas and Adam Russ...

Source: OIJ A 57-year old man who was arrested as he attempted to depart Costa Rica last week has been identified as a physician from the United States. According to a report filed by Jorge Sancho Vargas of daily tabloid Diario Extra, Dr. Ehsan has been practicing medicine for more than 20 years in the Southern California region; he was most recently associated with a well-known urgent care an...

Source: Fuerza Publica Black Market, Black Eye - By Edward R. Myers (FSCwire Press Release) - According to Danya Mere, a seasoned investigative journalist writing in Mexico’s newspaper, Reforma, “Canada is not only famous for its maple syrup or for Niagara Falls, it is also famous for producing cigarettes sold in the international market illegally.” This indictment comes after a group of...

PerHead.com screenshot after indictment A business operation in Costa Rica has been named in a major criminal indictment issued by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in connection with a multi-million dollar sports betting operation in Boston. The 122-count indictment by a Suffolk County Grand Jury is the result of an investigation by the Attorney General and the Massachusetts Stat...

SERT training. Source: OIJ During a raid on a private residence last week, officers from the Special Response Team (Spanish initials: SERT) of the Judicial Investigation Office (Spanish initials: OIJ) executed an arrest warrant that took them by surprise as they were greeted by a hail of armor-piercing gunfire. According to a report filed by Carlos Arguedas of national newspaper La Nacion, ...

Pixabay Commons ORLANDO, FL. (PRWEB) November 23, 2015 - PandaLabs, the laboratory of Panda Security, warns its latest quarterly report, that there has been a wave of cyberattacks where the security and information of various governments has been compromised. Additionally, the report lists the malware infection rates around the world, and Costa Rica shows a rate that is higher than the global ...

Source: Gerardo Cruz Facebook Gerardo Cruz, a young man who became a folk hero in Costa Rica through his actions in public and on social media, passed away from a cardiac arrest at 6:18 pm on Thursday, November 19th. As reported by The Costa Rica Star in October, Mr. Cruz was a 22-year old man who confronted another man for filming an “upskirt” video in the capital city of Costa Rica. Two d...

Source: MSP San Jose, Nov 19 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Costa Rican police on Thursday arrested a Syrian woman who entered the country earlier this week on a stolen Greek passport, a case similar to the one that occurred this week in Honduras, where five Syrian men using Greek passports were taken into custody. The arrest was carried out by the Public Force (Fuerza...

Panama Canal Panama Canal, Nov 17 (EFE).- Experts attending a three-day International Trademark Association meeting that kicked off here Tuesday will discuss ways to combat the transit of counterfeit goods through the Panama Canal. The Leadership Meeting is "an opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges of combating counterfeiting and to advocate for measures to halt the transshipm...

Pixabay Commons New York, Nov 16 (EFE).- A Salvadoran citizen is on the list of the 10 cybercriminals most wanted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The fugitive, identified as Carlos Enrique Perez Melara, 35, is charged with hacking the private communications of hundreds and even thousands of victims, according to the FBI. Perez Melara ran a Web site that offered customers a w...

Sex Shop in France. Wikimedia Commons Herbal Viagra is one of the most popular products sold in sex shops across Costa Rica these days. Male customers who take these products, which are sold over-the-counter to any adult, report that herbal Viagra is very effective insofar as resulting in long-lasting erections and pleasant feelings of excitement and euphoria. According to a recent report f...

Source: Flickr Commons Berlin, Nov 14 (EFE).- The 45-year-old German woman arrested as the possible mother of eight babies whose mortal remains were found in the home where she had lived in Bavaria, admitted Saturday to police that she had killed "several" of them immediately after they were born. The suspect, who was sentenced to imprisonment without bail on suspicion of multiple murders, ...

Andrea Calderon, former host and presenter of a youth-oriented television show, is at the center of a sordid investigation as to why several photos she thought were taken in an intimate setting are now going viral on various social networks. The latest updates on this scandal was revealed on Facebook and through an interview with a local entertainment reporter. Miss Calderon posted a cryptic up...

Source: Fuerza Publica A foreign woman was taken into custody on Wednesday by law enforcement officers assigned to the inauguration of City Mall, the largest indoor shopping center in Central America, located near the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) in the province of Alajuela. According to a press release issued by Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, the wo...

Flickr Commons1 Mexico City, Nov 9 (EFE).- The coach of a girls' basketball team in the southern state of Oaxaca was shot to death by a father who was angry with the decision not to let his daughter play in a game, Mexican authorities reported Monday. The incident occurred at a sports facility in Oaxaca on Sunday after a game in which Guillermo Audelo, 33, had coached his team - the Dragons...

United States Department of Justice Press Release - Anchorage, Alaska - U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced that Dr. Michael Brandner, 67, of Anchorage, Alaska, was convicted today of four counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion by a federal jury sitting in Anchorage, Alaska. According to the indictment and evidence introduced at trial, shortly after his wife filed for divorce i...

A simple man: Pope Francis. Source: Wikimedia Commons Buenos Aires, Nov 5 (EFE).- A group of thieves broke into the home of relatives of Pope Francis in Argentina's Mendoza province and made off with electronic equipment and the family pet, a toy poodle, local media reported on Thursday. Romina Ayelen Bergoglio, the pope's grand-niece, told local media that she saw three thieves leaving her...

A Kidnapper’s Favorite Currency: Bitcoin On October 22nd, 2015, Hong Kong tycoon Wong Kwan (known as Wong Yuk-Kwan to his family) was released from captivity after his family reportedly paid the kidnappers $13 million in Bitcoin – a far cry from the $70 million the kidnappers had requested. Kwan is the chairman of Pearl Oriental Oil, and had been in captivity for 38 days. He was in rough sha...

US Ambassador Haney. Source: Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica Without security, there can be no development in Costa Rica. Such was the emphasis posited by United States Ambassador S. Fitzgerald Haney as he appeared before the Permanent Commission on Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Legislative Assembly on the last Friday of October. Ambassador Haney mentioned that there is a priority at ...

Source: Flickr Commons A 17-year old male was calmly taken into custody after he allegedly murdered his stepfather to put an end to a pattern of spousal abuse in Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by Alejandro Monge of national newspaper La Prensa Libre, the 42-year old victim was identified by the last names Ugalde Cruz. The incident occurred in La Fortuna, located in the San Car...

Source: Zoo Ave A columbiform bird that was apprehended by corrections officers as it attempted to smuggle drugs into prison will perform community service at a wildlife rescue center in Costa Rica. The avian specimen, which goes by the alias Narcopaloma (narco-pigeon) has been remanded to the custody of Rescate Animal Zoo Ave, a rescue and rehabilitation center in La Garita, province of Al...

LONDON, Oct. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Saturday (18 October) marks the 6th anniversary of British journalist Michael Dixon's disappearance in the seaside holiday town of Tamarindo. Evidence indicates he was the victim of violent crime. But Costa Rica authorities and British police did little to investigate. They've now given up on the case, despite the family's long-standing appeals for assis...

Source: Facebook The case of Gerardo Cruz Barquero, a young man who was brutally stabbed days after he documented a man apparently recording an obscene video in the capital city of Costa Rica, is becoming more convoluted. The man whom Mr. Cruz caught in the purported act of attempting to record the exposed legs and buttocks of a young woman wearing a miniskirt has gone public with a few statem...

Press Release by The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District - PHILADELPHIA- Miguel Amaris-Caviedes, 37, of Costa Rica, pleaded guilty today to two counts of knowingly conducting financial transactions that involved purported drug proceeds. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 7, 2016. Amaris-Caviedes was laundering purported drug proceeds through Costa Rican bank acco...

Source: Flickr Commons A 22-year old man who confronted another man for filming an “upskirt” video in the capital city of Costa Rica was stabbed multiple times last night as he walked through the San Sebastian district, located in the southern suburbs of San Jose. The victim, who has been identified by the last names of Cruz Barquero, recently became a social media sensation after an incide...

Pixabay Commons San Francisco, Oct 3 (EFE).- A group of hackers that calls itself README dumped on the Internet the personal data of more than 2 million users of the San Francisco-based Patreon crowdfunding Web site, the company reported Saturday. The crowdfunding site, founded in 2013 by musician Jack Conte and digital developer Sam Yam, collects funds from donors to help artists finance t...

Source: Flickr Commons Nearly 100 low-income families have decided to take over land that belonged to a United States farmer who was killed in Costa Rica. According to a news report recently filed by Alexander Mendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the squatters have moved into a farm in Coloradito a remote village located near the border with Panama. The farm in question is apparently part ...

Mr. Madonna and Mr. Tacetta. NJ AG Office NJ Attorney General Press Release. TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that Matthew Madonna, a ruling boss of the New York-based Lucchese crime family, was sentenced to state prison as a result of Operation Heat, an investigation by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice that uncovered an international criminal gambling ent...

Immigration officers assigned to the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), located in the province of Alajuela, detained a male traveler from the United States during the early hours of Friday. According to a news report filed by Josue Alvarado of online news daily Costa Rica Hoy, the U.S. man planned to enter our country for the purpose of tourism; however, he was denied entry at the passp...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Federal Bureau of Investigation Press Release -- NEWARK, NJ-A Hudson County, New Jersey, man was sentenced to 19 months in prison for his roles in conspiring with a criminal enterprise that engaged in illegal online sports betting in New Jersey and elsewhere, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Robert J. Scerbo, 57 of Bayonne, New Jersey, previously pleaded gu...

Pixabay Commons Americas Cardoom Press Release - San Jose, Costa Rica – September 16th, 2015 – In the world of poker, putting your money where your mouth is means everything. Americas Cardroom has certainly taken that to heart as evidenced this past weekend during its Million Dollar Sunday. When faced with an overlay of more than $200,000 and an onslaught of DDOS attacks, Americas Cardroom nav...

Source: Andrey Camacho Jimenez, PZNoticias Baker & Partners Press Release -- Stephen Baker, Senior Partner and Advocate at Baker & Partners, joined the defense team for Ann Patton against the San José Public Prosecutor, securing her second acquittal for the murder of her husband, multi-millionaire John Bender, in Costa Rica. John Bender died of a single gunshot to the head in the be...

Source: Pixabay Commons An elderly man from Florida was arrested earlier this month at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), province of Alajuela, as he was trying to return to the United States. According to a news report filed by Adam Linhardt of daily newspaper Key West Citizen, David Strecker, better known as “Cuba Dave,” was arrested under suspicion of deriving proceed off pros...

Source: Facebook Law enforcement and intelligence agents fighting the United States-led War on Drugs and looking for the fugitive boss of the Sinaloa Cartel are scaling down their search efforts for Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman in Costa Rica. In recent weeks, a Twitter update purportedly from the son of the fugitive boss of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel set news media outlets afire and prompted law...

Deputy District Attorney for Perez Zeledon, Edgar Ramirez told reporters on Monday that prosecutors intend to appeal the Monday acquittal of Ann Patton, the US woman who stood accused of killing her wealthy husband John Felix Bender on January 8th, 2010. In what marked the end of her third murder trial, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled on Monday morning to acquit Patton. If the appeal ...