Costa Rica Busts Drug-Trafficking Gang
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Costa Rican authorities seized 840 kilos (1,850 pounds) of cocaine hidden in large pieces of marble and $107,000 in cash in an operation in which four Mexicans, a Colombian and two Costa Ricans were detained as suspects.
The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency, Jorge Rojas, told a press conference that the drugs seized Thursday were to be shipped to Mexico.
The suspects will be prosecuted for international drug smuggling, which in Costa Rica is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
They were arrested in two raids on a warehouse in Santa Ana, a town 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) west of San Jose, and an apartment in Heredia province, 20 kilometers north of the capital.
According to the results of the probe, the Mexicans arrived in Costa Rica five months ago and rented the apartment and warehouse where in October they stored the shipment of marble, which had arrived from Egypt.
The drugs are believed to have arrived from Colombia and to have entered Costa Rican territory overland, under conditions that are currently being investigated. They were subsequently hidden in the blocks of marble.
Authorities believe this operation was to have been the first by this drug-trafficking group, Rojas said.
Although he did not indicate which drug cartel the gang or the cocaine belonged to, the OIJ director said it is regrettable that Costa Rica is becoming a “point of encounter for Mexican and Colombian cartels.”
Rojas said authorities have determined that Colombian drug-trafficking organizations are bringing drugs to Costa Rica, storing it there and then selling it to Mexican “colleagues,” particularly the Sinaloa drug mob.
According to official figures, Costa Rican authorities have seized almost 90 tons of cocaine over the past four years, the vast majority from vessels in the Pacific Ocean.
