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Security minister calls for immediate action against organized crime as death toll mounts

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Security minister, Gustavo Mata, addressed the media on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of CRHoy.com)

Security minister, Gustavo Mata, addressed the media on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of CRHoy.com)

October 14th, 2015 (ICR News) Security minister Gustavo Mata on Tuesday called for immediate action and a change in strategy to combat organized crime in Costa Rica, amidst a growing wave of homicides involving organized drug trafficking gangs this year.

 

As of October 9th, 426 homicides have been recorded, with more than half attributed to such groups, according to authorities.  The largest portion of these crimes occur in San Jose, as organized crime groups compete for turf for local drug sales and to settle scores, according to authorities.

 

Mata told reporters that a new, specialized unit is needed to fight the problem, and called for the courts, the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ), the Ministry of Justice and the Legislature to work together to restore security.

 

Mata said it was especially important that authorities begin to directly target the heads of these criminal organizations, saying that taking out the leadership is the only way to stop the bloodshed.

 

Mata also said more prosecutors were required to work with and support investigators.  “That would give an immediate response to what we see in the streets,” Mata said.

 

Mata also said that the Narcotics Division and the Homicide Division of the OIJ need to unify their investigations.

 

The end result, according to Mata, should be the creation of a special integrated law enforcement unit to fight organized crime.

 

“We must have robust investigations to arrest these criminals and put them in prison,” Mata said.

 

Mata also expressed his opposition to a plan that would release 5,000 convicts from prison early, asking lawmakers to reconsider the idea.

 

Mata said that the country and lawmakers cannot wait 2 or 3 years to address the problem, “or we will have a thousand, or two thousand more dead.”

 

In regards to the Legislature, Mata urged lawmakers to quickly approve pending legislation that would allow for quicker and easier asset forfeiture of assets purchased with the proceeds of crime and drug trafficking.  The legislation would also require those purchasing luxury, big-ticket items such as vehicles and luxury homes to prove the origin of the funds used for the purchase.

 

Mata also cited the pending Weapons Act, which would increase gun control.  Other legislation pending in the Legislative Assembly includes the creation of a special court and judicial unit to prosecute organized crime.

 

Mata also said that prevention should be a key component to addressing the problem, including lessening the domestic demand for narcotics by making addiction treatment more accessible to young people.

 

President Solis, for his part, told the media in recent days that the increase in violence is actually the result of his administration’s increased battle against organized crime, saying that as a result of his administration’s successful efforts to jail the leaders of these groups, there is now a violent fight to replace their leadership and to take over territories, especially in the capital city.

 

Public concern over increasing violence – especially in the San Jose metro area – increased even further in recent days, when a security camera on Friday captured the scene as multiple gunmen with fully-automatic AK-47s intercepted a taxi and sprayed the vehicle with a hail of bullets in broad daylight shortly after 8:30 a.m. 

 

Nearly 100 rounds shred through the vehicle, killing passenger Dennis Patricio Omier Taylor and leaving his girlfriend and the taxi driver seriously wounded.

 

Taylor, the target of the assassination, was himself linked to at least 15 murders and was a suspected hit man for a narco-gang.

 

At least nine more killings were recorded in the following three days.

 

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  • prdatki

    The first thing that needs to be done is make it much easier and cheaper for people to own weapons and get proper training. Then establish the death penalty. Prisoners should work, grow food, cotton and build prisons.Drugs should be legalized and taxed. Judge’s, politicians, prosecutors and law enforcement should be audited any one guilty of corruption should be executed in public. This will bring the desired change for the Country.

    • disgusted

      Thailand a few years back had on TV a public execution of several involved with drug trade. . Guess what drugs dealers where gone the next day. IF CR was serious about this . When they capture the tons of drugs, or kilos for that matter, document it weigh it destroy it immediately. Take the boat, semi or car and dismantle it. Give the money to the poor not the government. Have the police say he cooperated fully and disclosed all then just release him to explain this drug lords. I do agree marihuana should be legal and all the indigenous here grow it sell it and a way for them to survive. Naw! I was only day dreaming again.

  • Ben

    I spoke with a few Costa Rican cops that say the security ministry is scared shit less about what is happening. Local police are quiting and many cops say they are out gunned by narco and crimmals. I want people to start to expect the unexpected with the cartels they know they have the Costa Rican goverment under there control. To all US and Canadian Citizens and EX pats get out of Costa Rica unless you have a gun to defend your property and family. Costa Rica needs to form an army fast and the police in Costa Rica are out gunned and out manned. Get out of Costa Rica before its to late. Things are going to get very nasty in Costa Rica.

    • disgusted

      So Ben, I guess you’re leaving as well. Another thing a policeman here said to me when they arrest those committing crime the judges just release them back onto the streets. Why should I risk my life for nothing. Was there not article a while back that criminal element has infiltrated into the government here> ? I been searching for it without any luck. Arresting this Italian cocaine mafia yesterday they got 6 month preventive detention. Now we will see how quickly they get a pass on this or released and poof they are gone.

      This comes at a time when the tourism trying to jinn up CR as a eco friendly country. It is scary for all of us especially now Security minister, Gustavo Mata says it is going to get worse unless all departments work together. And the police are out gunned for sure.

      • Ben

        I live in Costa Rica for 4 months and live for 8 months in Panama. Next years i plan to spend more time in Panama. My home in Costa Rica is very small in the mountians away from everyone now. Costa Rica goverment does not work together at all so expect thing to get really nuts.

  • Yeims

    The ethos of a country is its fundamental character, spirit, and disposition as a nation. Back in the early 80’s there was a fairly strong middle class and a fairly well defined culture, but by 86, with the huge influx of persons from neighboring countries, things went downhill pretty fast. Now there is no middle class to speak of, the culture totally eroded, and an adversarial relationship exists between government and citizens. The army was banished from Costa Rica in 1948 to assure there would be no more coups, and there will be no recovery from this state of affairs because the country has no real leaders and no followers. I believe the government acted at first with very good intentions, but corruption has now poisoned just about everything here, and the middle class, which is the real motor of a country, has been killed.

    • SDPUS

      Most reports indicate that the middle class has flourished in Latin America (especially Costa Rica) over the last few decades. Considering the strength of unions and their bloated pay within CR, I would think that too indicates a stronger middle class. I do agree with your point on the growth of the corruption class. I would be willing to bet this is more due to the proximity of Costa Rica in a burgeoning drug trade. It is inevitable that a black market commodity of such value is going to corrupt any nation, be it first world or developing. The ONLY answer is complete legalization. Do you want to live in a society that is a blood bath, because that is what happens. Colombia and Mexico and any inner city in USA certainly indicate that is what happens. If Mata gets all he wants, it might sound good to the people, but you can guarantee one thing. There will be more blood in the streets. The ONLY way to win this, is to devalue and regulate the commodity. Legalization is the only way to do that. Otherwise, the cartels will forever corrupt. The money is just too great. Colorado is the epitome of success with what they have done with marijuana. It is time to wake up people. Look at the empirical evidence. It is very clear. Empowering the police is the wrong strategy. They already have the tools, it is time for them to get a real strategy. Remove every corrupt government employee. All of them!!!

  • Ken Morris

    As long as these guys are only killing each other, what’s the problem?

    I realize that there are more problems than this, chiefly that innocent bystanders get hurt and consolidated organized crime gangs start extorting businesses while infltrating government. Law enforcement can’t just do nothing.

    However, Solís’ comment to the effect that increased apprehension and imprisonment of gang leaders has led to increased violence as new wannabe leaders compete for control deserves to be considered. The entry of law enforcement into these battles does sometimes turn two-way wars into three-way wars.

    Let’s therefore hope that either Mata knows what he’s doing–or someone who does know stops him before he makes the problems worse.

    Unfortunately, at this point Mata isn’t inspiring a lot of confidence.

    To call for stricter gun control legislation is almost silly. The AK-47s used in the recent shooting are already illegal in Costa Rica, and I seriously doubt that many of the gang members bother to register their potentially legal weapons.

    Whether or not laws allowing easier confiscation of assets purchased with crime money would help, I can’t say, but I fear that with such laws we can all say bye-bye to our property rights. Those discussed for example dispense with frivolities like due process.

    Easier access to drug treatment would also be nice, but does anyone believe that 80% of the users are really helped this way? Unfortunately, state-sponsered drug treatment tends to become a full employment act for state-paid social workers.

    Maybe a new, specialized enforcement unit would help Mata do his job. This is his bailiwick, and for all I know the organizational structure could be improved. However, things like specialized enforcement units do have a tendency to add layers of cumbersome bureaucracy to an already inefficient operation.

    But he’s the man now, and I think he should be able to reorganize his operation the way he thinks best. Law enforcement is an unfortunately necessary component of the solution once things get as out of hand as they have gotten, so let him reorganize anyway he wants to.

    However, I for one don’t believe that law enforcement is anything but a stop-gap, and that’s when it does a good job. It can also do the kind of bad job that just turns two-way wars into three-way wars and increases the killing.

    For now, therefore, the challenge is smart police work–the kind of dull investigative stuff that gets the kingpins–rather than the Rambo shoot out stuff. After all, as long as these guys are primarily shooting each other, I don’t see any reason for cops or citizens to risk either their lives or an escalation of the violence.

    • http://insidecostarica.com/ Timothy Williams

      Your first sentence is a problem, because a LOT of innocent bystanders are getting cought up in the crossfire, including the completely innocent taxi driver in Friday’s incident, and several homes of innocent people that were shot up on Sunday as eight men engaged in a shootout in the middle of a Pavas neighborhood, just to name a few within the last week.

      I can’t even recall now how many children and innocent bystanders have been hit by stray bullets or cought in the crossfire so far this year, we can’t even report on most of the incidents because we don’t have staff to cover it, but just pick up a copy of Diario Extra and see for yourself (it is sort of their niche, as you well know). For every one dead so far this year there have been many more wounded, and I would venture to say that nearly half of the wounded were not the intended victim.

      • Ken Morris

        Fair enough, but I thought I covered this concern.

        Also, this from a rival publication covering Mata’s presentation:

        “An analysis as of August found that 145
        of the 370 murders up until then were what he called vengeance
        or ajustes de cuentas.. . . Some 202 of the crimes until August or 55 percent of the total, were
        related to organized crime, he said. The others included 92 as a result
        of arguments or fights, 42 that took place within family members and 10
        as a result of robberies, according to the minister.”

        If we do the math, we see that 57 of 202 killings attributable to organized crime, about one in four, were of people other than the intended target.

        However, if we use our heads, we might question whether all of these 57 killed were exactly “innocent bystanders.” People who hang out with wannabe gang leaders aren’t themselves usually upstanding citizens.

        True, there ARE innocent people killed, and more of them hurt, and I don’t want to make light of them. But there are fewer innocents killed this way than there are innocent pedestrians killed by motor vehicles.

        Neither is acceptable, but maintaining a sense of proportion is important. It is because we hear calls for a better-armed police force and citizenry to combat this gang violence.

        Problem is, a 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the NYPD cops miss their targets 70% of the time too, and by some estimates a quarter of all police shootings in the US are of innocent bystanders. So cop shootings aren’t any more accurate than thug shootings. (In fact, one study I read showed that the criminals were better shots.) Are we to expect Tico cops to be better shots than New York’s finest?

        And this is before we consider the lousy accuracy of armed citizens. Now there’s a loaded cannon aimed at innocent bystanders, if I can be forgiven for the analogy.

        While I understand why you or others could have a problem with my first sentence (since I do too), your reservations may relax somewhat if you put it the problem in the context of the alternatives.

        When the alternatives are more heavily armed police and citizens (see the comments) I’m pretty sure that the results will be the killing of more innocents. When the alternatives are those Mata wants–longer incarceration of 5000 inmates, easier confiscation of property, and a specialize law enforcement unit–there are also tradeoffs. Indeed, reading between the lines, I suspect that Mata wants a heavily armed specialized unit under his personal control, a potentially dangerous change.

        It’s all well and good to be concerned about the innocent victims, and I am too. My point is just that the cure could very easily become worse than the disease.

  • Chris Thomas

    The CR government officials are not getting killed because they are doing business with the drug cartels, look at the minister’s face looks like he is drunk is is laughing at the situation, government officials are making money from this drug business under the table, CR government are a mafia and one of the world’s most corrupt governments top 10 for sure.

  • duke ster

    A little off topic in a way–The new Muslim Dictator Obama has issued a new decree-
    -No it’s not to behead all who won’t accept the “Mark of the Beast” ( meaning Islam),not yet anyway.
    He has issued a new decree that all pork will now and henceforth be eliminated from ALL prison menu’s.
    What decree will he issue next?
    He
    will declare that ONLY HE is capable of handling the new scary
    emergency which has befallen the land ( who knows what it will be but it
    WILL be HUGE, you can bet on that!
    There fore He will seek to stay in office and begin an unprecedented 3rd term, and of course the 4th and 5th and so on.

    • SDPUS

      A third term is not unprecedented. FDR was an extremely wealthy man who looked out for all citizens. That is what is missing today. And coincidentally, our economy was in a similar situation (1929 & 2008). You obviously don’t like Obama, but it would be dishonest to not recognize the economic turn around. Now the next President must continue the process, and tame the corporate billionaires. The tax system can easily do just that. Billionaires and corporations need to pay a lot more!! 94% of the USA economy are salaried or hourly workers. 6% are entrepreneurs. We need a more family oriented culture. And to do that, we need to diminish the inequities, such as bankruptcy laws. Donald trump can go bankrupt 4 times and never seemingly suffer. Citizens cant even discharge student loans. The federal courts have been stacked since the Reagan revolution. Supply side economics (Trickle Down) simply don’t work.

      • duke ster

        FDR was not a Muslim . Islam says to kill all who will not accept Islam. Do you think Obama will not establish Sharia law? Read the Koran if you are ignorant of Islam’s intent and laws. Read the parts where it says to kill all who don’t accept Islam. What do you think “Put to the sword” means? You are somehow missing the elephant in the room by talking about corporate this and that–Are you blind? Islam, Muslims –will kill you unless you accept Islam.

  • duke ster

    Don’t overlook the fact that Obama is Muslim and just “executive decreed himself a 3rd term and outlawed pork in the prisons AND will establish Sharia law -1st in USA and after the whole world-which decrees execution by beheading, all those who refuse Islam. This is by the way, the “mark of the beast” described in the Bible in the book of Revelations.

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