Immigration Offices Raided by OIJ
The Ministerio Público and the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) made special call on the offices of the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería in La Uruca yesterday to affect a series of searches.

The police action is based on a complaint that dates back three months relating to irregularities with the issuing of residencies and visas to a Orientals.

Police arrived at the immigration offices and remained there for more than 10 hours, taking with them a large quantity of records and files to be closely scrutinized at the offices of the OIJ.

More than 20 judicial agents, a judge and a prosecutor took part in the search that included also the offices of the director, Marco Badilla.

The search also included the immigration offices at the Juan Santamaría airport and the travel agency Orientur, located in San Pedro de Montes de Oca and the home of the owner of the travel agency.

Judicial agents are looking for what they believe is a network that issues Orientals phone documents to allow them to obtain their Costa Rican residency, that include minors as well.

Marco Badilla, Director of Migración y Extranjería, said in a press conference after the police action that no formal charges have yet been made against any person or immigration official and that his office is offering complete collaboration to the judicial officials.

Badilla told the press that for the moment they have no one person or persons that could be part of the network, but is interested to clear this up and is open to any type of investigation to that end.

Miguel Quesada Niño, vice Minister of Gobernación, which Migración is part of, said that the search by judicial officials is a direct result of reports of irregularities in Orientals obtaining visas as reported by a local television station last year.

Many foreigners who arrived at the immigration offices to renew their visas were told to come back the following day. The situation was the same for those there to get a new passport or other immigration matters.