Agents from the Organization of Judicial Investigations of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: OIJ) have taken two persons into custody for their alleged participation in a narcotics distribution and retail scheme that catered to foreign visitors and expatriate residents in Guanacaste and Puntarenas. When the suspects were arrested in Liberia, they were found in possession of cocaine byproducts as well ...

A few beach communities are named Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica, and two of them often get mixed up by tourists and expats. There's Playa Hermosa near Jaco Beach -this one is in the province of Puntarenas, and there's also the Playa Hermosa of Costa Rica's Gold Coast in Guanacaste. These two tourist and expat havens have one thing in common: They are gorgeous beach towns besieged by crime that often...

Fernando Zumbado in court in Costa RicaA former Minister of Housing in Costa Rica was recently sentenced to three years in prison for misusing donated funds and perpetrating fraud against the government. Fernando Zumbado served during former President Oscar Arias' second administration; and, despite his criminal conviction and sentence, he will not spend a single day behind bars. Mr. Zumbado w...

Timeshare Scams in GuanacasteThe timeshare and fractional ownership market is a lucrative subsector of the real estate economy; unfortunately, it is also very vulnerable to scammers, swindlers and flimflam artists. Costa Rica is not impervious to real estate deception, and the province of Guanacaste seems to be a focus of recent timeshare shams and charades. At the controversial consumer compl...

Church in Belen de Nosarita, NicoyaThe community of Belen de Nosarita in the canton of Nicoya is in shock over the murder of Ingrid Hernandez Mayorga, age 38, by her romantic partner at around 5 a.m. on January 10th. The police are searching for the only suspect, last name Castro, about 40 years old, who witnesses say fled into the mountains, an area he knows well. The two were a couple alt...

Bar and restaurant administrator: Pedro Chavarria CamachoOn December 1, three hooded men held up Vista Verde Bar and Restaurant in Samara and got away with about 1.2 million colones ($2400) as well as seven liters of various types of liquor. Pedro Chavarria Camacho, the bar’s administrator, related that the bar was busy that night but the thieves must have hidden nearby, waiting for the place ...

Police in Costa Rica seize tons of cocaine during 2013The police in Costa Rica seized 19.2 tons of cocaine, 2.8 tons of marijuana, 70,000 crack rocks and 11,209 doses of ecstasy in 2013. Costa Rican police confiscated 19.2 tons of cocaine from January to Dec. 15, making it one of the leading countries in drug seizures in the region, according to the Public Security Ministry. The achievement...

Playa Brasilito Two foreign visitors who came to Costa Rica to enjoy the beaches of Guanacaste abruptly ended their vacations with their unexpected demises. One tourist drowned in Playa Zapotal while the other was shot and killed in Playa Brasilito. These unfortunate losses took place right at the beginning of the high tourist season, a time when Guanacaste's seasonal population increases cons...

After three months of arduous training, 21 dogs on Friday completed their training to now begin their work, along with their official guides, to sniff out illegal drugs and explosives and for the first time in the art of detecting fake currency. The training was provided by Colombian officials, thanks to an international cooperation agreement. The officials and their dogs will be on duty in...

Ecstasy drug use in Costa Rica is on the rise and increasing profits for narcosSan Jose, Costa Rica – Thirteen human-trafficking victims in Costa Rica this year were taken for their organs, according to a report on crime in the country that gives new life to an ongoing organ trafficking scandal unfolding in the country. The report, co-authored by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (U...

Source: Fuerza Publica A band of four thieves suspected of robbing truck drivers in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica were ready to ply their nefarious trade on Christmas Eve and come away with a big score of coffee beans, tires and home appliances. Thanks to the work of Fuerza Publica officers, however, members of this Grinch mob were forced to sing Silent Night behind bars. According to ...

Shark fins are hacked — legally in this case — off a frozen shark carcass in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas. The practice of cutting off sharks' fins at sea and throwing the rest of the body back is illegal in Costa Rica, but still persists.The Costa Rica Star has previously published extensively on shark finning in Costa Rica. If you want to learn how to smuggle shark fins into Costa Rica...

Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security in Costa RicaA criminal organization formed and led by Costa Ricans, that infiltrated the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), to finance cocaine from Colombia to Belgium, was the target of the Drug Control Police (PCD in Spanish). In a series of early morning raids Tuesday in Limón and Cahuita in the Caribbean and Moravia and Curribadat, in San José, 12...

Source: Wikimedia Commons When the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) recently announced a major sweep that netted 361 arrests of known street gang members and collaborators, it was revealed some of those in custody are from Costa Rica and may have ties to Guanacaste. This is a grim reminder that although anti-gang efforts in Costa Rica have been effective, law enfo...

Source: Fuerza Publica Residents and visitors in the Caribbean communities of Costa Rica have gotten used to seeing the bilingual and courteous Tourism Police officers riding past on their high-performance bicycles and wearing their stylish white polo shirts, but in the past few weeks they have seen them dismount, spring to action and take down suspects. Marijuana Smuggling in Pococi On ...

Former guerrilla leader Eden Pastora can't seem to catch a break. This man, who was once an iconic figure of the Cold War, is currently busy abiding by an order of the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) that directs him to repair environmental damage he caused to Calero Island in the northeastern tip of Costa Rica. While trying to fix the considerable mess he made, he is trying to...

The discovery of the lifeless body of a three-month old baby by his grandmother in Guanacaste on Sunday, November 17, 2013, has prompted a forensic investigation. According to a news article by Cythia Bran of national newspaper La Nacion, the grim finding took place about 300 meters north of the Villas del Sueno hotel in Playa Hermosa, a beach community that is located just northeast of Playas del...

Over 80 people attended the meeting in NosaraMore than 80 people attended the Nosara Security Association meeting on Tuesday, November 11, at 10 a.m. at Giardino Tropicale. Many in attendance expressed concern or raised questions about recent attempted rape attacks as well as a wave of thefts. Members of the association’s board took advantage of the opportunity to plead for more support, for p...

The Judicial Investigation Organism (OIJ) arrested three lawyers, who are serving preventive prison terms related to property fraud. Many of the properties involved are in the Nosara area. The investigation gathered force after the December 2012 edition of The Voice reported on 16 cases of fraudulent property registration transfers. By October, the office of NCCC Consultores reported 22 cases, ...

Recently, two women, both in their early 20s, have been attacked during the day by men on two separate occasions in the Nosara area. Both managed to escape, but the incidents have given rise to concern in the community and arrangements are being made to offer a free self-defense class for women. First, a woman, who wished her name to be kept anonymous, was attacked in an attempted rape on Octob...

The Samara community breathes easier now after the arrest made by the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) on Sunday, October 13, to dismantle an alleged drug ring operating in the community. The investigation started this year in January and concluded with actions taken this weekend when eight subjects arrested of Colombian nationality, of ages between 25 and 52, were arrested, the OIJ p...

Ann Maxine Patton, the U.S. woman who was accused of killing her wealthy husband, John Felix Bender while he slept in their sprawling estate in Baru, Perez Zeledon, will face a retrial of the case after a court dropped the charges against the woman in January. In the original trial, Patton was accused of shooting her husband in the head, and charged with first-degree murder. Patton, however, cl...

Source: Fuerza Publica Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, is stepping up its vigilance in Guanacaste. Increased foot patrols, strategic operations and good community relations have resulted in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in drug dealing, poaching, robbery, and smuggling. Population growth and enhanced foreign investment in Guanacaste call for increas...

Church in Downtown Grecia A wave of crime that has been sweeping through the northwestern rural areas of the province of Alajuela seems to be spreading to other cantons to the south. As previously reported by Radio Santa Clara and the Costa Rica Star, robberies and break-ins have multiplied in recent months, but criminals are now turning violent and targeting expats from the United States livi...

Source: Remembering Justin It has been more than two years since Justin Johnston was shot and killed in Costa Rica. His killer, a security guard who thought the teenager from Kansas was breaking into a hotel, is facing 15 years in prison. The retrial was ordered by the Appeals Court of San Ramon, province of Alajuela, under the doctrine of iuris tantum -rebuttable presumption. As explained ...

Source: Flickr CC When traveling to a foreign country, how much attention do you pay to travel advisories issued by your government? For example, if you follow the news releases published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Costa Rica, you would know that travel to Syria at this time is absolutely not recommended. Costa Rica does not publish travel warnings per se, although officials from...

Source: Wikimedia Commons The cold-blooded murder of an Asian man in Downtown San Jose is renewing fears that Chinese Triads and other Asian organized crime groups might be increasing their presence in Costa Rica. According to a press release by the Judicial Investigation Organization (Spanish initials: OIJ), agents on duty responded to an incident in a coin-operated gambling machine establ...

A computer hacker was able to alter the online system of a private bank in Costa Rica to buy and sell dollars at extreme exchange rates, making away with more than ¢200 million colones (US$400,000 dollars) over a period of four months. Francisco Segura, head of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ), explained that the hacker, who had an account with the bank, was able to change the exch...

The Costa Rica Star previously published about Mara Street gangs and why they have not spread to Costa Rica in volume. A study of gender roles in Central America's "maras" sheds light on the dual role of women, who are simultaneously violently exploited and heavily relied on by male gang members. The study "Violent and Abused", a joint initiative between several non-governmental organization...

Source: Facebook The death of a pizzeria owner in a sleepy beach town in Costa Rica has many expats wondering what may have happened to the 36-year old man. Jose Elkin Gomez Sanchez had been missing since Thursday, August 15th, when Costa Rica was busy celebrating Mother's Day and the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. His body was found floating off Playa Flamingo, province of Guanac...

What started with an email turned into the dismantling of an international organ-trafficking ring. American surgeon Francis L. Delmonico, the chairman of the World Transplant Society, emailed Jorge Cortés, the director of Hospital Clínica Bíblica – one of the three private centers authorized to perform transplants in San José – in November 2012 that an Israeli had undergone an illegal kidney tr...

Members of the brutal street gangs widely known as Maras continue to wreak havoc in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras -- but why haven’t they taken root in Costa Rica as well? MS-13 and M-18, the two strongest and most widespread Mara gangs, were spawned in the 1980s in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods by disaffected Central American youth. Most were transplanted to the US by their families, de...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A recent news release published by the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) claims that three Canadian investors were victims of a swindle involving a bank account in Costa Rica. The incident dates back to 2012, and it was allegedly perpetrated by a presumed investment firm based in Chicago. According to a Notice of Hearing issued by the BCSC, the perpetra...

Wikimedia Commons As families in Costa Rica prepare to celebrate one of their most important holidays, inmates in the country's three correctional custody institutions for women are reflecting on what August 15th used to mean prior to their incarceration. These women, many of whom are single parents, are part of Costa Rica's growing inmate population. They will spend Mother's Day deprived of f...

At the beginning of June, after receiving several reports of a scam from multiple towns, including Samara, Hojancha and Nosara, the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) was able to apprehend four suspects with the help of the Nosara Public Police Force, including three women and one man. The scam artists went to houses promising to give people appliances or TVs in exchange for their gold j...

In Costa Rica, no one is immune to home robberies, not even if you are one of the most recognizable faces in the country, like that of Public Education minister, Leonardo Garnier. The Fuerza Publica and Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), report responding to call from the Garnier home in Zapote. According to the police report, the minister and his wife, Maria Marta Ortiz, were not at...

Fourteen individuals with a history of sexual offenses were barred from entering Costa Rica due to a warning system by the International Police (Interpol), allowing immigration officers to detect the foreigners before landing on Costa Rican soil. Immediately, the foreigners were returned to their country of origin, said Freddy Montero Mora, deputy minister of the Interior. Montero explained ...

Source: Flickr Amid allegations of dubious funding, money laundering and even ties to powerful drug cartels, more than 100 pirate radio stations in Costa Rica will be investigated by public officials and law enforcement officers. According to National Chamber of Radio Sations (CANARA in Spanish) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT in Spanish), there are 13...

Jairo Mora proved just how deadly poaching turtle eggs in the province of Limón along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast has become. “They arm drug addicts with machetes and knives, sometimes even with makeshift or low-caliber weapons, so they can steal the eggs,” Mora told the Costa Rican daily La Nación, adding narco-traffickers pay the thieves with drugs to fuel their addictions. Twenty...

Street Racing or “Picones” are common in many areas of San José, mostly due to the lack of enforcement by the Policia de Tránsito (traffic police) during night hours. Street racers can easily find straightaways and other sites that naturally lend to street racing and without fear of traffic cops showing up and cutting their dangerous fun short. However, an “anti-picones” unit made its debut ...