The Insolvency Service The Insolvency Service Press Release – First Choice Properties MGT Ltd, a London property investment company has been ordered into liquidation in the public interest following an investigation by the Insolvency Service. The investigation found that the company had cold called unsuspecting members of the public promoting the purchase of plots of land in Brazil, Cyprus,...

Source: MSP Ministry of Public Security / Official Communique CP-1319-2015 – Police officers assigned to the port city of Limon, located in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica, rescued five sea turtles in the nick of time, thereby preventing their slaughter by nefarious poachers. The incident occurred in Moin, near the area located between the beach and the maritime shipping docks. Officers ...

Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Jul 21 (EFE).- Puerto Rican police are closing in on the "Santurce rapist," a criminal who has spread panic here in recent months. The chief of detectives of the San Juan metropolitan area, Maj. Jazmin Perez, told EFE Tuesday that the cops are working with tips received in the last few hours after they posted photos of the man suspected in four cases of rape sinc...

Source: MSP Two suspected poachers were arrested this weekend by officers from the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica in Playa Amor, located in the Santa Cruz canton, province of Guanacaste. According to official communication CP-1301-2015 from the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP), the suspects were caught with 165 sea turtle eggs, specifically from the Lepidochelys ...

Wikimedia Commons Three delivery and distribution workers from the British American Tobacco Group in Costa Rica were rescued by law enforcement officers after being taken hostage by two suspects, one of them armed with a pellet gun. According to metro reporter Alejandro Fonseca of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the incident occurred near the dairy farming community of Coronado, located in the out...

Pixabay Commons Agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) arrested a 24-year old man identified by the last name of Rivera, who is alleged to have been an active member of the massive underground hacker forum Darkode, which the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) recently dismantled.   The arrest was executed at the suspect’s home in ...

Source: Flickr Commons A criminal trial for the murder of two men at a bar in the southern suburbs of San Jose made headlines in Costa Rica yesterday, which was when a witness who was in a sexual relationship with the accused killer took the stand. Wearing tight clothing and high heels, the attractive woman confessed that she was a prostitute hired by the defendant, and that they were having s...

Wikimedia Commons Washington D.C., July 14, 2015 (SEC Press Release) — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged 15 individuals and 19 entities for their roles in alleged schemes to manipulate the trading of microcap stocks. The 34 defendants include six firms alleged to have acted as unregistered broker-dealers catering to customers who sought to conceal their stock ownership and m...

Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Jul 13 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star) - A group of poachers could have been responsible for the killing of an endangered hawksbill sea turtle that was found dead on a beach in Puerto Rico's Efrain Archilla Diez Natural Reserve, officials said. The Natural and Environmental Resources Department, or DRNA, said that during its preventive patrol w...

Francisco Morazan Park in San Jose. Source: Wikimedia Commons Couples in the midst of intercourse and prostitutes flashing intimate body parts to prospective clients are the two most common sexual acts that officers from the Municipal Police, Transit Police and Fuerza Publica encounter as they conduct their daily patrols across Costa Rica. According to a late 2014 report filed by metro reporte...

"El chapo Guzmán" por Fabrizio León Diez - Obra do próprio. Licenciado sob CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Jul 12 (EFE).- Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman escaped from the Altiplano I federal prison in central Mexico through a 1.5-kilometer (nearly one-mile) tunnel that led to a house, officials said Sunday. Guzman, who had been held at the prison in Mexico stat...

A criminal defense attorney has been arrested and charged under suspicion of smuggling cocaine into a Costa Rica prison. According to a news report by metro reporter Manuel Estrada of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the legal professional has been identified by the last name of Ruiz, and he was caught in act by corrections officers at the San Sebastian prison, located in the northern districts of San ...

Source: Flickr Commons On Monday morning, the lifeless body of a 60-year old man was found in the guest room of a small inn located in Tamarindo Beach, province of Guanacaste. The man has been identified as Erasmo Antonio Urbina, a foreigner from Nicaragua who came to Costa Rica years ago to work as a custodian and security guard. The housekeeper who found the body of Mr. Urbina explained t...

Source: MSP Last week, officers from Fuerza Publica (the national police force of Costa Rica) assigned to the Caribbean region rescued a green sea turtle that was likely on its way to being butchered. The incident occurred in the port city of Limon during an operation conducted by members of the Special Intervention Unit (Spanish initials: UIP), who were working together with Fuerza Publica...

Source: MSP Five men were arrested earlier this week after police officers found them in possession of a butchered sea turtle from a virtually extinct species that is just starting to return to Costa Rica. According to an official communication from the Ministry of Public Security, the incident occurred in Moin, a coastal district of the Caribbean province of Limon.   Officers from ...

Source: U.S. Embassy The National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica will be augmenting its marine and shore patrols in the Pacuare sector of the Caribbean province of Limon. According to a news report filed by Angie Guerrero of online news daily CRHoy.com, four to five Coast Guard officers per shift will be assigned to patrol Pacuare in light of the attacks on volunteers from the Sea Shepherd ...

Source: Fuerza Publica Since March, officers from Fuerza Publica (the national police force of Costa Rica) assigned to the Caribbean port city of Limon have been conducting nighttime beach patrols for the purpose of bringing protection to the sea turtles that massively arrive during nesting season. When the officers working the night shift attend roll call and receive their patrol briefing,...

Source: Sea Shepherd SEA SHEPHERD Media Release -- A group of 11 volunteers working with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Sea Turtle Defense Campaign Operation Jairo were physically attacked by poachers last night during a peaceful patrol of Costa Rica’s Pacuare Beach to locate and protect nesting endangered turtles and their eggs. Two volunteers sustained minor injuries. Upon spotting t...

A tracking device installed in a vehicle stolen from an expat resident from the United States helped law enforcement agents take down a den of thieves located in the southern suburbs of San Jose. According to a news report filed by Patricia Duran of daily tabloid Diario Extra, a 37-year old man is in custody for his alleged role in this larcenous ring. As previously reported by The Costa Rica S...

Washington, Jun 21 (EFE).- Charleston's historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church reopened its doors Sunday and held its first service four days after a 21-year-old white man gunned down nine black church members in one of the worst tragedies of its kind at a U.S. religious institution. "A lot of folks expected us to do something strange and to break out in a riot. Well, they just don't...

Source: Flickr Commons UPDATE: Daily tabloid Diario Extra reports that the 46-year old expat resisted the carjacking and was shot during a struggle that occurred outside the vehicle. An expat from the United States by the last name of Morehead sustained a gunshot wound and was rushed to the hospital after an apparent carjacking in Costa Rica.  According to a news report published by online ...

Source: OIJ A top law enforcement agent in Costa Rica has been arrested under suspicion of being involved in a bizarre intimidation scheme that resulted in the wrongful detention of three visitors from the United States, one of them a former police officer. Early reports on this strange situation indicate that the strong-arming may be tied to unethical practices in the lucrative real estate ma...

Source: Wikimedia Commons NEWARK, NJ (US Attorney Press Release) —Two members of a racketeering conspiracy involving the Genovese Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra and an online sports betting operation were sentenced today in federal court, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Dominick J. Barone, 45, of Springfield, New Jersey, and Eric Patten, 38, of Bayonne, New Jersey, were sentenced t...

They miss Jairo. Source: Sea Shepherd (Sea Shepherd Press Release) -- Volunteers from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Operation Jairo campaign, currently protecting sea turtles and their nests in Pacuare, Limon, Costa Rica, have warned that poachers in the area are planning actions against their personal safety. Operation Jairo Ground Leader for Costa Rica, Brett Bradley reports that he...

Flickr Commons LYON, France – (INTERPOL Press Release) -- Car parts, fuel, food, detergent, cigars, shampoo and steel were among fake goods worth nearly USD 60 million seized in a two-week operation across the Americas and the Caribbean. Codenamed Maya II, more than 2,000 interventions by police, customs, investigators and Intellectual Property (IP)...

Source: Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jun 14 (EFE).- A 19-year-old Russian woman confessed that she murdered her mother and 12-year-old sister, whose dismembered bodies were found at their house in Tijuana, a border city in northwest Mexico, media reports said. Anastasia Lechtchenko Masney, who was the prime suspect in the murder case, was found and arrested in Sinaloa, another northwestern s...

Source: Dallas PD Washington, Jun 13 (EFE).- A police sniper shot a van driver who had earlier staged a shooting attack against Dallas police headquarters that caused no fatalities. The suspect could be dead, Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a press conference. Dallas police, who gave all the details of the shooting on Twitter, said that after more than four hours without verbal cont...

Source: MSP Officers from the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica were busy earlier this week in the southern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica as they intercepted a large shipment of compressed and vacuum-sealed marijuana aboard two motor vessels: one named “Leon” and the other “FIFA.” Four suspects were detained in the operation, which started with maritime surveillance by means of vis...

Pixabay Commons Washington, Jun 4 (EFE).- The personal data of up to four million U.S. federal employees may have been compromised by a massive cyberattack, which could have been the work of Chinese hackers, U.S. authorities said Thursday. The hack-attacks occurred last December but were not detected until April, the U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management said Thursday in a commun...

The adult victims. Source: Fuerza Publica The brutal murder of two children and their parents in a small town in Costa Rica has devastated the community of Copey, located in the Dota Valley, a region renowned for its quality coffee. Although the facts surrounding this horrible incident are somewhat cloudy, law enforcement agents and investigators are considering the possible involvement of a U...

Ross Ulbricht (right) and his family enjoy happier times. FreeRoss.org (Department of Justice Press Release) Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that ROSS ULBRICHT, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to life in prison in connection with his operation and ownership of Silk Road, a hidden website des...

Silk Road screenshot before seizure. Ross Ulbricht is a young man from Texas who spent part of his childhood in Costa Rica. Earlier this year, Mr. Ulbricht was found guilty of operating Silk Road, an online bazaar that connected drug dealers with consumers via a Bitcoin escrow system and home deliveries; he is now waiting to be sentenced, and prosecutors from the United States would like to se...

USS Kauffman in Norfolk, Virginia. Source: U.S. Navy PACIFIC OCEAN (United States Navy Press Release) -- In collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard, the guided-missile frigate USS Kauffman (FFG 59) interdicted 1,775 kg of cocaine, worth an estimated wholesale value of approximately $59 million, in international waters of the Eastern Pacific, May 16. The suspected smuggling vessel was spotte...

Eduardo Li. Source: FEDEFUTBOL (United States Department of Justice Press Release) A 47-count indictment was unsealed early this morning in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging 14 defendants with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with the defendants’ participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corrupt...

Source: Flickr Commons In Mexico, violence and disregard for human life are spreading throughout society, and three recent incidents involving children underscore how much of a widespread and worrisome problem this has become. The following reports are provided courtesy of Agencia EFE, the wire news service partner of The Costa Rica Star.   Minors who killed boy in Mexico facing confi...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Powerful rip currents have once again taken the life of a foreign visitor who arrived in Costa Rica in search of fun and relaxation. This time, the setting of the unfortunate incident was the pristine Playa Flamingo, located in the province of Guanacaste, and the victim has been identified as a 40-year male from Italy named Giorgio Modula. According to a news report by...

Source: MSP Officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, rescued 81 iguanas that had been confined to a box at a hotel in San Jose. According to a press release issued earlier this week by the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP), the officers found the iguanas while responding to a report of larceny. Per the MSP press release, officer Keilyn Bermude...

As part of a series of international conferences that aim to promote the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, an organization based in the United States will meet in Costa Rica in June 2015 to discuss various issues related to this topic. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is a nonprofit organization made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal ...

Washington, May 20 (EFE).- The U.S. government said Wednesday that five of the world's largest banks have agreed to pay a combined total of nearly $3 billion in criminal fines and penalties for rigging currency rates. Those global financial institutions "for years participated in a brazen display of collusion and foreign exchange rate market manipulation and will as a result pay a total of near...

The moment Teresita is rescued. Source: MSP A heartbreaking communication from the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP) indicates that the lifeless body of an 11-year old boy, who had been missing along with his sister in Costa Rica, was found in the bottom of a ravine in the rural canton of Upala, not far from the northern border with Nicaragua. The body of young Alexander S...