Tentacles of
Drug Trafficking Extend Widely in Costa Rica
By Douglas Marin Mata
The 80 tons of cocaine seized in the last
three years are the best evidence that the
tentacles of drug trafficking are spreading
freely through Costa Rica, a country that
was taken unawares by organized crime due to
the lack of laws and specialization by the
police.
Police, fishermen and businessmen involved
with bands of drug traffickers, judges
investigated for controversial rulings in
favor of kingpins and the lack of resources
to combat the problem have set off alarm
bells with the authorities and the public.
The latest big case came to light in
mid-June when Mexican authorities discovered
in a port in Yucatan 894 kilos of cocaine
inside frozen sharks that had been loaded in
Costa Rica.
Costa Rican police arrested five suspects
for making the shipments through a fish
export firm, the owners of which possess a
huge amount of property, where authorities
subsequently discovered tunnels and
storerooms apparently used to warehouse
drugs.
To this case, and just so far this year, may
be added the seizure of 395 kilos of coke
that were being transported in a helicopter
that crashed in May in the country’s eastern
mountains and the theft in March of 320
kilos of the drug from police warehouses in
Golfito, in Costa Rica’s southern Pacific
region.
Authorities arrested eight people suspected
of having stolen the drug shipment, among
them three policemen and a former cop, from
whom they also confiscated $306,000,
apparently obtained from the sale of part of
the shipment.
Costa Rica’s attorney general, Francisco
Dall’Anese, said last week that the country
“is doing the ridiculous” in the fight
against drug trafficking because some
seizures have been made by chance or thanks
to the activities of another country’s
authorities, and he called for the approval
of a crime bill that Congress could bring to
a vote next week.
The national ombudswoman, Lisbeth Quesada,
said that Costa Rica is becoming “a
paradise” for drug traffickers and money
launderers because there is little police
specialization and no specific policy
against drug trafficking and also because of
“a legal response that moves very slowly.”
And Security Minister Janina Del Vecchio
acknowledged that Costa Rica had stopped
being a “transit” country for drugs, having
been transformed instead into a warehouse
for the Mexican and Colombian cartels.
Del Vecchio emphasized the seizures made
despite the lack of resources and she
characterized as “insufficient” the $4.3
million authorized for Costa Rica for 2009
as part of the Merida initiative, a U.S.-led
effort to help fight drug trafficking in
Central America and Mexico.
Since 2006, drug seizures in Costa Rica have
been on the rise, mainly along the Pacific
coast, thanks to a joing monitoring treaty
with the United States.
Authorities have discovered fishermen who
have been hired to transport drugs or supply
fuel to drug runners’ speedboats, while a
judge is being investigated for freeing
reputed traffickers.
Costa Rica is a country of 4.5 million
people and no army, with dozens of points
along its borders with no government
presence and with long coastlines, but it
has only 11,000 police officers.
Earlier this year, a law to protect
witnesses entered into force and the
approval of a bill against organized crime
is expected, and authorities hope that both
these measures will help reduce the gap
between criminals and the judiciary, thus
returning security to the nation once known
as the Switzerland of Central America. EFE
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