Costa Rican authorities seized 1,101 kilograms of cocaine in Quebrada Ganado, Garabito, Puntarenas, in addition to the drugs, the police confiscated two vehicles and several firearms, including AK-47 assault rifles.

Agents of the Investigative Police (OIJ) along with the Intelligence and Security Direction (DIS) and officials of the Special Intervention Unit, raided a beach home this Thursday afternoon, and arrested three men of last names Cortés, Cháves and López, and two women of last names Varisco and López, all of them Costa Rican.

According to Walter Espinoza, director of OIJ the investigation began several weeks back when they confirmed the activity of a criminal organization in the area that was sending cocaine from Costa Rica to other countries, with Mexico as the biggest market. The house was used as a storage place for the drug.

Just yesterday the Costa Rican Drug Control Police (PCD) in coordination with National Direction of Intelligence and Security (DIS), as well as the US agencies FBI and DEA and the German agency BKA took down an operation that was sending cocaine from Costa Rica to the United States and Europe hidden in the base of wooden platforms used to carry pineapples.

So far this year, Costa Rican authorities have confiscated close to 20 tons of cocaine, in 2017 the police seized a little over 30 tons of cocaine, a record number for the year.

Costa Rica is a transit route for cocaine usually produced in South America and sent to the United States. According to estimations by the Organism of Judicial Investigation (OIJ) and the Drug Control Police, in Costa Rica a kilogram of cocaine has a price of approximately $8,000.00 USD, while in the United States the same quantity can sell for approximately $35,000.00 USD and in Europe $60,000 USD.