The OIJ (Organismo de Investigacion) reports that murders are again on the rise in Costa Rica – and that has law enforcement officials worried. There have been 42 homicides in fifteen days, an alarming spike in the murder rate. At a recent press conference, OIJ’s director Walter Espinoza declared about the rise, “The situation shows no possibility of finishing soon.” This follows a slight drop in the number of homicides between 2017 (603 homicides), and 2018 (585 homicides). But experts predict that the rate will increase again in 2019, due to an increase in local drug traffic. They call this sale of illegal drugs in small quantities “narcomenudo”.

This trend is certainly not new to Costa Rica. In 2018 Costa Rica’s Security Minister Gustavo Mata said, “Criminality in the country now revolves increasingly around the drug trade, whereas previously it largely consisted of bank robbery, vehicular theft, and kidnapping.” In 2017, Insight Crime Magazine analyzed the situation with, “Costa Rica, which has long been considered the ‘Switzerland of Latin America’, which has seen a drastic rise in violent crime associated with the illegal narcotics trade.” This rise comes despite robust efforts by law enforcement to curb drug trade, and take guns off the streets. As of August, the murder rate in Costa Rica was down, and the confiscation of guns was up.

Crime experts believe that the murder spike is the result of territorial battles between warring local drug gangs. “El Pellejo” and “La Reina del Sur”, two powerful drug cartel leaders of the Southern Zone, were recently captured, leaving other cartel members scrambling for power within the gangs.  “Between 2000 and 2015, the country’s murder rate nearly doubled from 6.3 to 11.5 per 100,000.” Then there was a small reduction, followed by the recent crime spike. The current Costa Rican homicide rate is one murder every 16 hours.

Traditionally in Central America, the epicenter of violent crime has been the Northern Triangle – Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – however recently there has been a large uptick in organized crime in both Panama and Costa Rica, bringing with it an alarming surge in violence. Initially the drug dealers were organized into cartels by either Colombians or Mexicans, but Costa Rica has now evolved to have its own homegrown “drug cartels”. These cartels manage staggering amounts of profits.
Costa Rica’s murder rate is six times higher than that of Canada, and double that of the United States. The United States rate is 4.9 per 100,000. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a murder rate larger than 10 per 100,000 to be an “epidemic”. Again, Costa Rica’s is now up to 11.5 per 100,000 citizens, with 70% of the violence being associated with cartel violence.
The OIJ ( FBI of Costa Rica) seems to be well aware of the drug cartel violence problem, and are hoping to better understand and fight the narco-traffickers now that they seem to have established themselves in Costa Rica, controlling not only drug traffic passing through the country on the way to the US, but within its borders as well.

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