One of Latin America’s most notorious drug cartels, Los Charros, have been using Costa Rica as a bridge for drug transportation. In San José, Costa Rica’s capitol city, members of Los Charros collect cocaine that is brought into the country through as of yet unidentified methods and transfer the drugs north.

The drug cartel normally runs cocaine from Costa Rica up to Nicaragua. Then, in convoys of trucks or cars, they move the contraband further north into Guatemala. With their alleged ties to the mafia in Mexico, it is difficult to tell how far north their “products” penetrate.

Los Charros is believed to be run from Guatemala and to have ties with a prominent Mexican mafia family as well. But many of its members are from various different countries in Central America. Several of the cartel’s leaders were brought down in Nicaragua last March and sentenced to more than twenty years of prison. One key cartel member was a Nicaraguan judge caught in May of 2011. He is thought to have been one of the principle players in document forgery for the group of organized criminals.

The network has used transportation companies, construction companies and hardware stores to launder its dirty money, but now they have found a new method. Los Charros have been cleaning and hiding their drug money by buying and registering real estate, automobiles and other properties under the names of Evangelical Churches. So far, one Evangelical foundation has been uncovered as a participant in the cartel’s criminal activities. There may be more religious foundations being used as money laundering fronts that have not yet been detected.

Source: Worldcrunch