A scary Internet hoax fueled by the flames of social media in Costa Rica prompted neighbors of Playas del Coco and other communities in Guanacaste to hide their children and ask a television network to investigate the ghastly rumors.

What started as a warning to locals and expats to look out for kidnappers targeting children in order to harvest kidneys and other vital organs was eventually dismissed by a police commander as a plate of creepypasta with hysteria on the side.

As reported by Primero en Noticias, an online news daily focused on Guanacaste, terrified neighbors of Filadelfia, Liberia, Playas del Coco, and Sardinal flocked to the Facebook Timeline of Teletica and told a grisly tale of children being targeted by a kidney theft ring. The regional director of Fuerza Publica, Costa Rica’s national police, addressed the situation with a scan of complaints and surveillance reports across all precincts in Guanacaste and found no evidence of suspicious activity in this regard.

Back in August 2013, The Costa Rica Star reported on the macabre work of an Israeli/Tico organ trafficking ring that was eventually dismantled by investigators and field agents of the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ). To this end, the rumors have some semblance to reality and current events, which happens to be one of characteristics of creepypasta.

Loyal readers of The Costa Rica Star will probably recall our 2013 article Creepypasta is Sweeping the Internet in Costa Rica. On that article, we described this Internet culture phenomenon:

Welcome to creepypasta, an online pop culture trend that is spreading across Costa Rica faster than a Guanacaste wildfire. Creepypasta is a curious 21st century term used to describe the compendium of campfire stories and urban tales of horror and supernatural happenstance.

 Online viral items tend to spread very quickly in Costa Rica, Facebook has been instrumental in the spread of creepypasta, and it seems that this time it may have come across as being a little too close to reality.