Costa Rican authorities obtained important results in their fight against crime by dismantling a gang engaged in narcotrafficking in the south of the country, on April 6, 2021. During the operation, authorities carried out 25 raids, including of a 25-hectare property.
Authorities detained 12 people, including the organization’s leader, González Hernández. The man posed as a local businessman to coordinate all the illicit activities. According to authorities, the group collected drugs, hid them, and distributed them in the national and international market. Judicial authorities seized 13 properties and 50 vehicles, including vessels and agricultural machinery.
In other operations, authorities conducted two seizures totaling 5.5 tons of drugs, including cocaine and marijuana.
On March 24, the Ministry of Public Security reported that, with U.S. air support, a vessel was intercepted in the Pacific Ocean carrying 2,029 kilograms of marijuana and 50 kg of cocaine. The vessel was intercepted 160 kilometers off the coast of Golfito, Punta Arenas province, where agents detained two Costa Ricans and one Colombian national, the statement added.
In another operation, on March 23, the Costa Rican Drug Control Police reported the seizure of 3,466 kg of cocaine at the APM Terminals, Moín Port, in Limón province. The drug was bound for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and criminals had hidden it in a shipment of banana puree.
During the operation, agents arrested a 31-year-old woman named Anchia Pérez, one of the scanner operators for containter inspection at the maritime terminal, who was in collusion with the criminals, the police added.
“This is the sixth operation we’ve done this year in which we’ve detected almost 4 tons of cocaine hydrochloride in containers leaving the country,” said Public Security Minister Michael Soto. “This is a problem in the region; all the countries have the same problems. That’s why we work at the local level, coordinating all the police forces, and at the international level, coordinating with all the countries, in this case the United States, and on many occasions we do it with Panama.”