Soccer games in Costa Rica always bring out the passion in Ticos, unfortunately this is not always the good kind of passion, but instead, it turns into violence and aggression. Last Sunday, June 17, during the national soccer team’s game against Serbia in the Russia World Cup, 911 registered in average 20 domestic violence incidents per hour, for a total of 482 reports in comparison to the 433 ...

This Monday, police authorities in Costa Rica were alerted of the apparent murder of a 67-year-old US woman who was found dead by her son in her motor-home which was in a property in San Rafael, San Ramon, Alajuela. The woman, identified as Melida Maria Thomas Gibson, and who was born in the United States but was nationalized Costa Rican, had knife wounds on her chest. Thomas was well known...

The Ministry of Public Security in Costa Rica will be reinforcing their preventive work at the frontiers with the help of new equipment and vehicles that were received by the institution. The police delegations located in the areas of Los Chiles, Upala, San Carlos in Alajuela, La Cruz in Guanacaste as well as in Sarapiqui in Heredia, Talamanca in Limon, Corredores and Coto Brus in Puntarenas ar...

It is a known fact that incarcerated criminals in Costa Rica still manage to start new businesses, restart operations closed down by law enforcement, or maintain thriving organizations they bring with them from the outside. How can this happen, right under prison officials’ noses? The answer? Cell phones. Cell phones are, of course, prohibited in Costa Rican prison facilities. According to Costa ...

According to a report by the Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) on the impact of the consumption of drugs in Costa Rican jails, this business moves between $1.7 and $7 million dollars a year. Just last year, authorities in the country seized close to $2 million in drugs in the penitentiary centers, 79.8% were seized from inmates, while 19.7% from visitors and 0.4% from personnel. 176 kilograms...

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) concluded after an investigation that Venezuelan national Diosdado Cabello Rondon (Cabello) has used his influence to personally profit from extortion, money laundering and embezzlement, and has used countries such as Costa Rica for his money laundering activities. Along with Cabello, his wife Marleny Josefina Contrer...

A total of 406 kilograms of cocaine were seized by the Drug Control Police in Costa Rica with a street value of over 12 million USD. The packets of drugs were hidden inside a container in Puerto Limon, Moin, and which originated from Colombia. The container was found on a routine inspection of a cargo boat of name “Nedeland Reefer” that originated from Puerto Turbo in Colombia, but was traveli...

The Costa Rican Coast Guard Service was able to intercept a speed boat in waters of the South Pacific which was carrying an important amount of drugs. Officers who had been surveying and patrolling the area located the speed boat and after a chase they were finally able to stop it at 3:35 a.m. 150 kilometers southwest of the Quepos coast in Puntarenas. Three men were arrested, two Colombi...

The twelfth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 countries according to their level of peacefulness, shows that Costa Rica is one of the countries that have presented a fall in peacefulness, dropping from the 34th position in 2017 to position 40 this year. The Global Peace Index is elaborated by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). “This report presents the most ...

Costa Rican Drug Control Police (PCD) officers found 300 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a container aboard a cargo ship in the port of Moin, Limon. The PCD agents arrived in Moin to check the ships, the drugs were found in a container on the ship MN Cala Palma which originated from Turbo in Colombia but traveled under Italian flag. According to information released by the Ministry of Public ...

Through a police operation organized this Tuesday morning by the Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ), 29 people were detained as suspects of being part of a criminal gang dedicated to car thefts. A total of 27 raids took place in Barrio San Jose, Alajuela; Concasa in San Rafael, Alajuela; Heredia, San Jose in Purral, Goicoechea and La Carpio in La Uruca. Members of this gang are linked main...

The number of femicides and different forms of violence against women are worrisome. According to numbers by the Observatory on Gender Violence Against Women and Access to Justice, in Costa Rica on average two women are killed per month in femicides. Last year for instance this number raised to 26 femicides.  So far this year there’s been 8 confirmed femicides. While in average the 911 service ...

The different police operations that have been organized so far this year by the Ministry of Public Security which have led to the seizure of 757 firearms. In the majority of the cases, the gun bearer didn’t have the respective permit to carry the weapon. Of the 757 firearms confiscated, 338 are pistols, 257 revolvers, 45 shotguns, 40 rifles, 46 rudimentary manufactured and another 20 that are ...

The General Directorate of Migration in Costa Rica has announced they are intensifying the security protocols to prevent people suspected to be part of organized criminal groups or gangs in Central America (known as ‘Maras’ eg..Ms-13, M-18) from entering the country. MS-13 and M-18, the two strongest and most widespread Mara gangs, were spawned in the 1980s in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods by ...

As The Costa Rica Star reported earlier today, the Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ) conducted several operations this Saturday morning to take down a drug trafficking cell associated with a Mexican cartel. In total 7 foreigners, six Mexicans and one Guatemalan, were arrested as a result of the operations carried out by OIJ in conjunction with the Special Service of Tactical Response (SERT i...

The Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ) conducted several operations this morning to take down a Mexican cartel operating in Costa Rica. The raids took place the morning of this Saturday in three locations in Alajuela (Atenas, Grecia and the center of Alajuela, as well as in Guachipelin, Escazu; as a result, seven people were arrested, six Mexicans and one Guatemalan. Apparently, the suspec...

A white van carrying 302 kilograms of cocaine and that was being escorted by another vehicle was intercepted by the Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ) in Jacó, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. OIJ received confidential information that alerted of the situation and coordinated a road control operation with the Municipal Police of Garabito, the Public Force and the Direction of Intelligence and Security...

President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado, signed a Law 9552 for the creation of the National Police Academy which seeks to bring professionalism to the police force. In the past five years 3,998 new people have joined the police, 78% men and 22% women, 43% of them concluded 9th grade of high school, 51% graduated high school and 6% have university studies. The approval of this law was celebr...

Through May 24, 2018 the Costa Rican police register a total of 247 violent deaths, 27 more in comparison to the same period of 2017. In a period of just 25 hours, between Tuesday and Wednesday 10 people were killed, half of them in San Jose, and the rest outside the Great Metropolitan Area (GAM). The violent deaths in the past days include the shooting of an Italian citizen as he was leavin...

How could anyone in their right mind give support for MS-13 gangsters? These “animals” and “vicious killers” as President Donald Trump refers to them are being arrested, jailed and deported in record numbers. Their unabated criminal activity is the only way these ‘people’ can support themselves because nobody in their right mind would hire them to do anything positive or constructive so they sell ...

The bill to block cell phone signals in Costa Rican prisons was presented more than one year ago to the Legislative Assembly, today it received the approval in first debate and therefore could soon become a reality. The bill which is promoted by the Executive Branch, received the support of the 50 deputies present in congress at the moment of the voting. It has the goal of reducing the number o...

The creation in Costa Rica of a specialized court to combat organized crime was supposed to be ready by October 14 this year, however, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Carlos Chinchilla, requested that this is held back for another year with the purpose of getting the necessary funding. Chinchilla explained that the Supreme Court had already made the request to the Legislative Ass...

A foreign couple was shot as they were leaving the Italian Embassy in San Pedro, San Jose, Costa Rica this Wednesday afternoon. The victims were identified as Salvatore Ponzo, an Italian citizen who ran a business in Costa Rica and a woman of last names Lopez Toaquiza from Ecuador who was Ponzo’s girlfriend. According to a witness the couple left the embassy and were walking to their vehicle...

Costa Rican police raided 29 locations this Wednesday morning to bring down a drug trafficking operating the southern zone of the country which was headed by two former Coast Guard officers. According to the District Attorney office, the investigation began in 2016; as a result of today’s operation, the police arrested 22 suspects, among them four Coast Guard officers from Golfito and a female ...

Two United States citizens tried to leave Costa Rica through the Juan Santamaria Airport with a kilogram of ketamine hidden in baby powder containers. According to the Ministry of Public Security, officers from the Drug Control Police intercepted the suspects at the Juan Santamaria Airport, two men of last names Santoyo, 35 years-old and Morales, 38 years-old. The drug which is used as an an...

Philip James Layfield, 44, a personal injury attorney, was indicted on federal charges accused of stealing the majority of a multi-million dollar settlement, most of which should have been paid to the victim of a car accident. Layfield was arrested in New Jersey late April, when he returned to the United States from Costa Rica, where he relocated when his law firm Layfield & Barrett located...

All evidence indicates that the dead body found under the Rio Sucio bridge on Route 32 (San Jose-Limon) is the Italian citizen that went missing on May 14, Stefano Calandrelli. The body was badly decomposed and this complicated the proper identification of the same through traditional measures such as fingerprints; however, other characteristics of the body as well as items found along with it,...

The Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ) found the body of a man under the Rio Sucio bridge on route 32 (San Jose-Limon). According to the information given by the police the body was badly decomposed and therefore they require time to confirm the identity of the victim. As of Saturday, OIJ officers were conducting a search in this area after receiving information that the Italian citizen St...

The Judiciary Investigative Police in Costa Rica (OIJ) are making progress on the case of the Italian businessman, Stefano Calandrelli, who went missing the evening of May 14. Evidence indicates that Calandrelli, 51-years of age and co-owner of the Italian restaurant L’Incontro, was kidnapped; OIJ have detained 4 men and 1 woman in relation to this case yesterday evening in an operation carried...

The changes in the regulation regarding the sale of ammunitions in Costa Rica went into effect today, with the publication of the same in the official newspaper La Gaceta. According to this regulation those businesses authorized to sell ammunition have the obligation of registering for all sales the name and identification number of the physical (of legal age) or legal corporation acquiring them....

The Judiciary Investigative Police in Costa Rica (OIJ) requires the help of the public with providing any information they may have on the whereabouts of Italian businessman Stefano Calandrelli. Calandrelli has lived in Costa Rica for several years, he owned a chain of Italian restaurants and was once married to presenter and sports journalist Adriana Duran. According to OIJ, the 51-year-o...

The Judiciary Investigative Police in Costa Rica (OIJ) requires the help of the public with providing any information they may have on the whereabouts of Canadian citizen James Hogg. According to the information provided, Hogg is an expat living in the area of Quepos, Puntarenas area and was last seen last this past December. He is 70 years of age. If you have any information please call: 800-...

The Costa Rican government confirmed this Monday morning that several of their websites were hacked in an attack that apparently started on Sunday. All sites hacked have the extension go.cr and the total number of pages affected has not yet been confirmed. Some of the websites are already reestablished and working normally while others such as the pages of the municipalities of Puntarenas, Mati...

The Ministry of Security organized  a police operation on Friday involving over 600 officers in different areas of the country with the purpose of patrolling the streets and preventing crimes such as small-scale drug trafficking. “From the analysis of criminality in the country we have established that the hours between 4 p.m. and midnight there is a peak in the number of incidents reported, pa...

According to a report by the New York Times posted this Wednesday, the Washington Redskins cheerleading squad revealed that they could have been victims of sexual exploitation during a trip to Costa Rica in 2013. The group of women apparently traveled to Costa Rica for a calendar photo shoot which took place at the Occidental Gran Papagayo Resort in Culebra Bay, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Some ...

In 2017 Costa Rica closed the year with a record high 602 homicides. 2018 is shaping-up to be even more violent, adding 202 deaths through April 30 which represents 18 more than the number registered during the same period of 2017. Just this past Saturday there were 14 violent deaths reported, including accidents, a beheading, and a triple homicide in Pococí. With an average 50 homicides per...

During this past weekend, officers of the Ministry of Public Security managed to stop three vehicles loaded with cocaine packets in Coto Brus, Puntarentas, Costa Rica. The first vehicle was intercepted on Saturday, an SUV carrying over 60 packets of cocaine. The second case involved other two cars intercepted Sunday evening at around 8:30 p.m. by the Drug Control Police of the Ministry of Pu...

The emergency service 911 in Costa Rica is receiving in average 268 reports of domestic violence every day, which translates into one call every 5 minutes. The majority of the victims are women (80%), the number of calls increase during holidays and weekends when the husbands or romantic partners are home; soccer games also seem to be a trigger since every time there’s an important soccer game,...

Costa Rica’s National Coast Guard Service with the assistance of the United States Coast Guard intercepted a vessel that carried 809 kilograms of cocaine near Punta Burica, the South Zone of the country. The ship under the name “Arcasli” was intercepted 24 nautical miles from Punta Burica, the same is registered as a fishing boat and was built in 1994; a crew of four members was aboard the sh...

Costa Rica became the first non-European country to adhere to the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs, also known as Santiago de Compostela Treaty. This is the first international treaty against this type of crime and represents a big step towards battling trafficking of human organs in the world. The treaty’s objective is the prevention and penalization of traff...