She called herself “La Sicaria”, and advertised on social media that she would “kill anyone for c50,000”, or $78.00. This week she was convicted of seducing a man and luring him to his death in San Juan de Dios, Desamparados. Her real name is Carolina del Carmen Requene, a 26-year old single mother of three, originally from Nicaragua, but residing in Costa Rica for most of her adult life.
The term “Sicario” in Latin America means paid assassin or hitman, and originates from the Latin “Sicarius”, or dagger-man. The crime was perpetrated on the night of February 12th, 2017, on a lovely overlook in San Juan de Dios, where Requene had lured Marvin Eduardo Avila Quiros (26), with promises of sex. Instead, Avila met a tragic early death. Requene has been sentenced to 30 years of prison for this crime, but her lawyer says they are appealing the conviction. This is the first conviction of a female assassin in Costa Rica, but several others have been accused of murder for hire in recent years.
Requene became a focus of the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) at the age of 22, during an investigation by the OIJ de Heredia into a gang allegedly dedicated to seducing men in bars with the intention of robbing, then killing them. The gang members would seduce their victims in the bar, then persuade them to take them to a motel or private home, with the promise of sex. The men were then given a drug to knock them out so that the ladies could steal their watches, jewelry, cell phones and wallets. One such victim reported waking up in a motel room, with nothing left of his possessions but a single sock. This group of female thieves was disbanded in 2018.
The OIJ continued to monitor Requene, discovering that she had a relationship with a man in La Reforma Prison serving time for murder and carrying out phone and computer swindles from there. Requene had by this time honed her computer hacker skills enough to be of great help to several hackers operating successfully from La Reforma. The court concluded that Requene was convinced to kill Avila as payback for money not paid from a deal between Avila and Requene’s jailed boyfriend. She lured Avila to that remote location, where he was killed with three bullets from a 38-caliber revolver. Requene was often seen with that same type of firearm.
La Sicaria’s defense lawyer pointed out that the court never proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder weapon was hers, nor that she was in fact a paid assassin. She was convicted last week of simple homicide, and sentenced to 30 years of jail. Requene has no previous criminal record. She remains until her appeals trial in custody at El Buen Pastor Women’s Prison.
Requene joins various other convicted female assassins in Central America, but is the first from Costa Rica. More women are moving into positions of power within criminal gangs in recent years, as they struggle to feed their families during the economic hardship the COVID crisis has created. Ticas are famous for their beauty, making it easier still for them to seduce and entrap unsuspecting male victims.
The date for Carolina Requene’s appeals court date has yet to be determined

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