Source: Fuerza Publica In light of the terrible murder of an expat from the United States, the Director of  Costa Rica's national police force has promised the town of Playa Tamarindo in Guanacaste that police presence will soon be doubled in this coastal community. Such was the commitment recently reported by Patricia Duran of daily tabloid Diario Extra. Fuerza Pública Director Juan José A...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 15 (EFE).- Aaron Hernandez, a former tight end with the NFL New England Patriots, was found guilty on Wednesday of first degree murder in the 2013 death of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player from Boston who was dating his killer's sister. Hernandez, 25, fired his pistol six times at the 27-year-old victim. The seven-woman five-man jury deliberated fo...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) in Costa Rica believe that a businessman from the United States, who was shot multiple times in a shopping center located in the upscale community of Escazu, may have been targeted for assassination. As reported by The Costa Rica Star in March: An expat from the United States is in the intensiv...

Source: Sea Shepherd The crew of a vessel believed to be engaged in illegal fishing was rescued by members the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a direct-action ocean conservation group founded by the controversial Canadian activist Paul Watson. According to a news release recently published by Sea Shepherd: At 1152 GMT today, the notorious poaching vessel, Thunder, sank at 0˚ 20' North 05˚ ...

Blackwater helicopter over Iraq. Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 13 (EFE).- Four former U.S. Blackwater security guards were sentenced by a federal judge to long prison terms for the 2007 massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.   U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Nicholas Slatten to life in prison after his murder conviction in the killings at a Baghdad...

Screenshot of stratusoffshore.com Halifax - The Nova Scotia Securities Commission has issued a temporary cease trade order  (PDF) against Stratus Financial Group International (Stratus), Stratus Offshore, Magnus Torgenson and John Westbrook. The Commission received three complaints from Nova Scotia residents saying they were cold called by the company’s representatives pressuring them to in...

Wikimedia Commons Tijuana, Mexico, Apr 8 (EFE).- The Lo Yen City Chinese restaurant in Tijuana, a border city in northwestern Mexico, was closed for using dog meat in its dishes and not having a business license. Eyewitnesses said a person called the emergency services number after hearing a dog yowl, looking through a gate and seeing cooks at the restaurant in the El Rubi district butcheri...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Apr 12 (EFE).- Mining companies negotiate with the drug cartels operating in their areas, making arrangements for exploration projects, Mexican Association of Mining, Metallurgical and Geological Engineers, or AIMMGM, president Manuel Reyes said.   "We ask the mafia for permission, the organized crime groups, and we are able to (operate). Things get re...

Source: Flickr Commons A brutal beating during a robbery in Playa Tamarindo, one of the Gold Coast beaches of Guanacaste, resulted in the death of Barry Lawson, a 72-year old expatriate from the United States. According to a report by Guanacaste news website Primero en Noticias, the robbery took place on April 1st, and Mr. Lawson passed away days later at the CIMA Hospital in Escazú, province ...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 10 (EFE).- An American who was allegedly plotting a suicide car-bomb attack at a Kansas military base in support of the Islamic State jihadist group was arrested Friday while preparing the explosive. John T. Booker, Jr., a 20-year-old from Topeka, Kansas, has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, at...

Wikimedia Commons Culiacan, Mexico, Apr 8 (EFE).- Canada's McEwen Mining said Wednesday that some 7,000 ounces of gold worth $8.5 million were stolen in an armed robbery at its El Gallo 1 mine in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa.   No one was hurt in the robbery and the mine in the city of Mocorito was not damaged, the company said in a statement.   Mining and pr...

Source: Wikimedia Commons (US Department of Justice Press Release) - A U.S. citizen charged in connection with the operation of a series of fraudulent business opportunities was extradited from Costa Rica to the United States, the Justice Department announced today.   John White was charged in a Nov. 29, 2011, indictment in the Southern District of Florida with conspiracy to commit ...

A Germanwings A-319. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Apr 5 (EFE).- Lufthansa airline did not inform German air traffic authorities about the psychiatric problems being experienced by Andreas Lübitz, the co-pilot who deliberately crashed a Germanwings Airbus jet in the French Alps, killing all 150 on board. The Sunday edition of the daily Die Welt based its reporting on air traffic officials' rema...

An execution chamber in the US Austin, Texas, Apr 3 (EFE).- Anthony Ray Hinton, a man condemned to death in 1985 for killing two people in Alabama, was freed Friday after spending 30 years in jail for a crime that a new trial found he did not commit. Friends and family greeted the African American Hinton, now age 59, as he walked out of the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham, Alabama. H...

Wikimedia Commons OTTAWA (Division of National Defence Press Release) - Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Whitehorse, in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy, assisted with the interception of more than 5200 kg of cocaine in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica as part of Operation CARIBBE in early March. Quick Facts The crew of a coasta...

Source: Wikimedia Commons PHILADELPHIA – Joseph and Anna Rose Vitelli, of Conshohocken, PA, were sentenced today for their roles in a Racketeering conspiracy involving the Mastronardo Bookmaking Organization. Joseph Vitelli, 71, was sentenced to five months in prison and three years of supervised release, with the first five months served on house arrest. His wife, Anna Rose, 67, was sentenced...

A Germanwings A-319. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Mar 31 (EFE).- Co-pilot Andreas Lübitz, thought to have deliberately crashed an airliner in the French Alps last week, in 2009 reported to the Lufthansa flight school the fact that he had overcome a "serious depressive episode," the German airline said Tuesday. Lufthansa revealed the new information in a communique on Tuesday after conducting a...

Source: Flickr Commons Sao Paulo, Mar 30 (EFE).- A Brazilian man strangled his pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend, decapitated her and turned himself into police two days later after riding across Sao Paulo in a bus with her head in a plastic bag, local media reported Monday. The situation unfolded in the Pedreira neighborhood in the extreme southern part of Brazil's largest city, when handyma...

Source: Wikimedia Commons If you are used to taking your dog outside for a walk, and for the purpose of tending to certain bodily process, your failure to pick up excretory byproducts could lead to an exorbitant fine ranging from about $800 to nearly $2,400. Such is the gist of a legislative proposal tendered in Costa Rica by the opposition party Social Christian Union (Spanish initials: PUSC)...

A district of Tunisia - Wikimedia Commons Tunis, Mar 29 (EFE).- At least nine members of the Okba Ibn Nafaa terrorist group, including its leader and the mastermind behind the deadly attack on the Bardo museum in this capital, Lokmane Abu Sakhr, died in an operation carried out on the weekend by the Tunisian National Guard, an Interior Ministry spokesman told Efe on Sunday. The operation in...

San Sebastian, San Jose, Costa Rica A terrible road traffic accident near the busy roundabout of San Sebastian, located in the outskirts of Costa Rica's capital city, claimed the lives of two young men this past weekend. Jair Blokland, a 22-year old South American expat from Suriname and Jonathan Vargas, a 21-year old native of Costa Rica, were killed almost instantly after their vehicle struc...

Source: Pixabay Commons Last week, agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) in San Jose conducted a nighttime raid on a cabaret that allegedly provided more than just erotic dancing. According to a press release by the OIJ, the establishment also served as a den of prostitution, and a couple reportedly derived proceeds from each sexual transaction that transpir...

A Germanwings A-319. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Mar 28 (EFE).- The German co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a passenger plane into the French Alps and killing himself and the other 149 people on board told his girlfriend last year that he was in psychiatric treatment and that he planned to do something that would make his name known worldwide. "When I heard about the crash, I kept ...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Washington, Mar 26 (EFE).- The FBI arrested a U.S. soldier, who was planning to travel to the Middle East to provide the Islamic State with his military knowledge, and his cousin, who was going to remain in this country allegedly to carry out a terrorist attack, the Department of Justice announced Thursday in a communique. Both men - who are ...

Source; Wikiemdia Commons Prosecutors and agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) are searching for two expats who may have been involved in the death of a medical tourist in Guanacaste. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Bente Soldberg was a 42-year old woman from Norway who passed away at a facility that offered drug rehabilitation services. A...

Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security in Costa Rica On March 24th, the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs heard testimony provided by William R. Brownfield, the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). The testimony focused on the assistance given to Central Americ...

Jinotega (in red). Wikimedia Commons They call him the “Butcher of Jinotega.” Basil Edsel Givner is an expat from the United States who was convicted of the gruesome murder of Harley Silva Soza, a 34-year old man who was found decapitated and cut into eight parts in Jinotega, a coffee-producing region of Nicaragua. According to a news report by S. Ruiz of La Prensa, a major daily newspaper ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons In the wake of a terrible shooting that sent a United States expat to an intensive care unit in Costa Rica, the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) of the United States has issued a security message warning to travelers. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, the recent shooting took place in Escazu, an affluent municipality that serves as an upscale sub...

A landmine explosion. Source: Wikimedia Commons By Cynthia de Benito San Andres de Pisimbala, Colombia, Mar 21 (EFE).- To live in some of the 688 Colombian municipalities devastated by anti-personnel mines and other explosives, one must learn to look at the ground, a rule that hundreds of peasants have made a routine of their daily lives. "The mines really change community life. Once we ...

Flickr Commons A 30-year suspect allegedly tried to rape a Canadian woman who was walking down the beach of Los Brasiles Island in Poneloya, a coastal community in the Pacific seaboard of Nicaragua. Poneloya is in the district of Leon. According to a news story published by national newspaper La Prensa, the Canadian woman was all alone when Gerson Uziel Cuadra Vargas, a known felon, jumped ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Washington, Mar 17 (EFE).- A former U.S. Air Force mechanic has been formally charged with trying to join the Islamic State in Syria, the Justice Department announced Tuesday in a statement. The accused was identified as Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, a 47-year-old U.S. citizen who served as an avionics and instrumentation specialist in the Air Force from 1986-1990. He i...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A 42-year old woman from Norway who came to Costa Rica in search of a controversial addiction treatment suffered a fatal heart attack after ingesting ibogaine, a hallucinogenic substance derived from plants native to Western Africa. According to a news report filed by David Delgado of national newspaper La Nacion, the Norwegian woman passed away in 2014, but her cause...

Source: Flickr Commons An expat from the United States is in the intensive care unit of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in San Jose after being gunned down in San Rafael of Escazu, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Costa Rica. According to a report filed by Angie Guerrero of online news daily Costa Rica Hoy, the incident occurred on Wednesday morning, right after the victim stepped ou...

Sosua Beach. Source: Wikimedia Commons Santo Domingo, Mar 17 (EFE).- A total of 29 Dominican women, including 20 minors, who had become the victims of sex traffickers in the northern tourist town of Sosua, were rescued by Dominican and U.S. authorities after an undercover police investigation, the U.S. Embassy in this capital announced Tuesday.   As part of the investigation, author...

Source: MSP Officers assigned to the Bagaces cantonal precinct of the Guanacaste province rescued four baby parrots, which were in danger of suffocation. According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP) the baby birds were being peddled by a suspect who has a history of trafficking in exotic species. The rescue took place in the community of San...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A lifetime ban imposed by The Football Association (The FA) against British player Michael Boateng (from England) in relation to match manipulation has been extended by FIFA to have worldwide effect.   Michael Boateng admitted to charges laid against him by The FA for several breaches of The FA Rules, including accepting a bribe, gift, reward or other consi...

Mexico City, Mar 10 (EFE).- Mexican authorities located a building in the northern state of Nuevo Leon via the Internet that was used as a storage site for wild animals, some of them protected species, being sold by traffickers, the Profepa environmental protection agency said in a statement. The discovery in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, was the result of a joint investigation by Profe...

The Dominican Republic Santo Domingo, Mar 7 (EFE).- The deputy minister of energy and mines of the Dominican Republic, Victoriano Santos Hilario, was gunned down by unknown persons in the northern municipality of Cotui, the ruling Dominican Liberation Party, or PLD, to which he belonged, reported Saturday. During the attack, which occurred Friday night, the official's son was wounded, accor...

Source: Pixabay Commons The Criminal Division Tribunal at the Pavas Courthouse has sentenced attorney Moises Vincenzi to a five-year prison term for his role in a scheme to defraud an elderly Canadian couple in Costa Rica. According to a report by Evelin Andino of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the amount of money scammed by Mr. Vincenzi is close to $8 million. The expats who were ripped off b...

Jaco Beach A man from the United States was killed in a road traffic accident near the expat enclave of Jaco Beach, located on the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Preliminary reports suggest that the U.S. citizen may have been performed a reckless overtake and pass maneuver in the vicinity of a bridge without realizing that a propane gas delivery truck was coming in the opposite direction...