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Costa Rica,
Panama In The Crossfire
By Samuel Logan and John P Sullivan for ISN
Security Watch
Colombia and Costa Rica reaffirmed
counternarcotics cooperation underscoring
the reality of a new threat to security
facing Costa Rica, a country known as the
Switzerland of Central America. While most
analysts consider Central America’s northern
triangle countries - Guatemala, El Salvador
and Honduras - to be the most affected by
the regional drug trade, Costa Rica and
Panama have in 2009 become de facto
passageways, warehouses and money laundering
fronts for both Mexican and Colombian
organized crime.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) reports that seizures of cocaine
have increased dramatically in Panama and
Costa Rica over the last few years.
In 2000, seizures of cocaine in Panama and
Costa Rica amounted to 7,400 and 5,871
kilograms, respectively. By 2007, this
quantity had risen to 60,000 and 32,435
kilos for both states, respectively.
This surge dramatically underscores the
growing importance of these nations in the
cross-Hemisphere drug trade. They have been
caught in the crossfire of Mexico’s drug
wars.
Panama ‘red’
Many analysts observe that Panama could be
an emerging narco-battleground. In addition
to a suspected 2,000 coastal hideouts for
maritime traffickers, there is an emphasis
on overland drug routes.
“Around 65 percent of the drug smuggling
traffic through Costa Rica and Panama is
maritime, and most of the rest is over
land,” Paul Knierim, an Agent with the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) with
experience in Central America and currently
working as the staff coordinator in
congressional and public affairs, told ISN
Security Watch.
Extreme violence is also on the upswing. In
April, alleged members of Mexico’s Sinaloa
Cartel abducted two suspected Envigado
Cartel members outside Panama City’s Metro
Plaza mall, just one sign of the country’s
burgeoning drug trade. It is fueling a new
generation of gangs (108 gangs at current
count), paid ‘in-kind’ with drugs by the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
and other traffickers.
Costa Rica: Encroaching on paradise
On 30 September, it was announced that
Costa Rica would receive an additional $1
million in Merida funds to combat drug
trafficking (this is on top of an initial
$4.3 million allocated earlier this year).
The funds are targeted to bolster the police
and enhance efforts to counter money
laundering.
“Contrary to the Mexico portion of the
Merida Initiative, the Central American
portion [also] includes a significant amount
of funds for violence prevention. We were
pleased to see that almost a third of the
funding for the first year was earmarked for
prevention and community policing efforts,”
Adriana Beltran, senior associate for
citizen security for the Washington Office
on Latin America, told ISN Security Watch.
But Bruce Bagley, chair of the Department of
International Studies with the University of
Miami, remains cautious. “Costa Rica is a
target of opportunity and must be aware of
and alert to its institutional
vulnerability,” he told ISN Security Watch.
Costa Rican police assigned to counterdrug
duties had amounted to 183 officials
assigned to the Policia de Control de Drogas
(PCD). These officers are charged with
combating a half-billion dollar drug trade
that moves at least 1,000 tons of cocaine
annually.
Since the second year of President Oscar
Arias’ administration, when law enforcement
registered a 400 percent increase in the
amount of larger shipments - 500 to 1,000
kilos - moving through Costa Rica, the
country has begun to organize a cohesive
strategy to fight back, but observers are
still concerned about what’s on the horizon.
Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua are not
only shifting from transit to processing
territories, they are becoming
drug-consuming nations as well. The
increased presence of drugs and drug gangs
is stimulating a rise in crime and violence.
Central America’s most peaceful countries
may find a serious security challenge ahead.
"We haven't yet seen an escalation of
violence, but there is concern, so we're
focused on preventative maintenance and
going after the kingpins," Knierim said.
Earlier this year, in March, gunmen stole
some 320 kilos of confiscated cocaine from a
guarded storage unit in Golfito, a
commercial center near the border with
Panama. Security measures failed again, in
May, when a helicopter carrying an estimated
347 kilograms of cocaine crashed on Costa
Rica’s notorious Cerro de la Muerte,
allegedly en route to a warehouse located
near Turrialba, a small town just east of
the capital, San Jose.
At the time, Public Security Minister Janina
del Vecchio stated that “the presence of
Mexican cartels in Costa Rica is worrisome,”
adding that the helicopter crash supported
her analysis that Costa Rica is used for
cocaine warehousing as much as it has been
used for transshipment. Del Vecchio also
recently told the Tico Times, that
“[preventing drug trafficking] isn’t just a
fight on the seas, it’s also a fight in the
streets […].”
Despite concerns of corruption, Knierim
remains very supportive of Costa Rica’s
security forces. "In my time in Costa Rica,
I've had the pleasure of working very
closely with their drug police and judicial
police, and they are some of the most
professional, hard working cops in Central
America," he said.
By land or sea
Drug traffickers have begun to use
littoral routes on the Pacific side, as
close as five to 10 miles off shore. At any
sign of trouble, a number of estuaries and
rivers provide cover. Some don’t manage to
hide.
On 7 September, officers with Costa Rica’s
Drug Control Police (PCD) stopped two
fishermen steaming north about seven miles
off shore and interdicted 1,095 kilos of
cocaine. Just two weeks prior, officers
seized 382 kilos of cocaine out of a boat
parked on Garabito beach, near Jaco, a world
renowned surf destination.
On land, the best route north into Nicaragua
and beyond is through Peñas Blancas, the
border crossing in Costa Rica’s northwestern
corner. Both countries have placed a high
priority on guarding this passage as it is
considered a bottleneck for illicit
shipments moving north over land.
One unintended consequence, however, is that
more weight will pass through Costa Rica’s
disreputable Limon port on the Caribbean
coast, where officers seized 110 kilos of
cocaine from four dock workers who were
offloading a container that had arrived from
the Colombian port town of Turbo, on the
Uraba Bay, a long known drugs export zone.
Drug trafficking and the endemic criminal
violence it breeds are a threat to the
entire Western Hemisphere. The southern
states of Central America are just
encountering the risk involved.
At least two Mexican cartels, the rival
Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels are active
throughout Central America. It is near
certain that the Zetas and others are active
as well. Add to this the traditional
Colombian cartels and transnational,
third-generation gangs such as the Mara
Salvatrucha, and the potential for
cross-border drug wars and criminal
insurgencies rises.
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