An elderly man from Florida was arrested earlier this month at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), province of Alajuela, as he was trying to return to the United States. According to a news report filed by Adam Linhardt of daily newspaper Key West Citizen, David Strecker, better known as “Cuba Dave,” was arrested under suspicion of deriving proceed off prostitution as a third party, an activity known as pandering or pimping.

Writing for the Key West Citizen, Mr. Linhardt explained that Mr. Strecker is in preventive custody at the San Sebastian correctional facility near San Jose. In an interview with Mr. Linhardt, Mr. Strecker stated that he is being prosecuted under a 2012 law, but this is not entirely accurate.

If indeed Mr. Strecker has been charged with “proxenetismo” (pimping), the alleged offense would be under Article 169 of the Law Against the Sexual Exploitation of Minors. It is important to note, however, that Law 7899 is not limited to minors as its title may suggest.

Article 169 applies to:

Whomsoever promotes prostitution of persons of any gender, or else induces them to prostitution, or else recruits them for this purpose, or else convinces them to remain working as prostitutes, or else forces them into sexual servitude.

What took place in 2012 was a series of amendments of Law 7899, which added the actions of recruiting prostitutes and coercing them to remain working as prostitutes. The prohibition against pimping in Costa Rica has been around since the 1970s; these days, it could result in a prison sentence between two and five years.

Article 170 is a bit more stern as it covers underage victims or the use of deceit, intimidation or violence for the purpose of deriving proceeds from prostitution as a third party, and it also covers human trafficking. This offense also carries a longer prison sentence, between four and ten years.

As has been previously explained by The Costa Rica Star, the act of prostitution per se is not a criminal offense in our country.

What becomes apparent in Mr. Strecker’s case is that he has actively been engaged in the promotion of sexual tourism in Costa Rica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic for the better part of the 21st century. A cursory online search for “Cuba Dave” brings up quite a few websites and Internet media that detail his sexual escapades with prostitutes in Costa Rica and the Caribbean.

In late 2013, a lengthy (and very well-written) investigative piece by Allie Conti was published by the weekly Miami New Times. The name of the insightful article, Cuba Dave’s Sex Tourism Empire in Jeopardy, pretty much sums up his current situation in Costa Rica:

David Strecker is a skinny former softball pitcher who lives in a modest Key West duplex and maintains a healthy head of fine, sandy-colored hair. He is also a connoisseur of Caribbean prostitutes and has slept with more than 2,500 women under age 25. He has no plans to stop.

Ms. Conti, who is currently a staff writer at VICE Media, explained how Mr. Strecker found cheap sex with young (but not underage) Cuban prostitutes until the Castro regime cracked down on sexual tourism, which is when Mr. Strecker set up shop in our country:

The next home for subtropical sex was Costa Rica. Guys would tell their wives they were headed to San José to do business, but omit the stuff about girls on the side. Over time, the country — an American-retiree destination — became saturated with older white men who had divorced their wives and decided to stay.

At some point, Mr Strecker also felt that Costa Rica had run its course like Cuba in terms of cheap sexual tourism, which in his book means less than $100 per session. Mr. Strecker would later set up shop in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, where his computer equipment was seized by customs officers at the airport. Mr. Strecker used said equipment to create content for CubaDave.com, a website that he used to promote sexual tourism.

Discussion about the status of Mr. Strecker and sexual tourism in general has been ongoing for more than a week at CostaRicaTicas.com, an online forum used mostly by male sexual tourists from the United States and Canada. Over more than 70 posts, the discussion veers into dubious analysis of Law 7899, whether Mr. Strecker was set up by U.S. law enforcement, and whether he was snitched on by a disgruntled website administrator who had previously worked with him.