HomeNewsBriefDrug War Has Made Costa Rica More Violent: President
BRIEF

Drug War Has Made Costa Rica More Violent: President

COSTA RICA / 24 SEP 2012 BY INSIGHT CRIME EN

President Laura Chinchilla criticized the current strategy of the war on drugs, saying that it has worsened violence and corruption in her country -- something illustrated by recent reports on the rise of "narco-families" in Costa Rica.

“We’ve had about 10 to 15 years of pursuing a strategy with certain characteristics, and in precisely this period, violence, extortion, and corruption in our countries, far from improving, have worsened,” Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said in an interview with Mexican newspaper Excelsior.

Chinchilla said the current drug-control strategy, focused on interdiction, had not worked and had even worsened the situation, “provoking consumption and violence in countries that were once just transit areas.”  

The president called on the United Nations to adopt a greater role in the fight against drug trafficking, and urged the international community to take on the drug trade as a threat to global security, as it has done with terrorism.

InSight Crime Analysis

Costa Rica, which has long been spared the worst effects of the drug trade, is an increasingly important transit hub for cocaine trafficked from South America to Mexico. Recent high profile cases have made the problem especially visible. A group of 18 Mexicans who posed as journalists while they attempted to smuggle $9.2 million in cash through Nicaragua, for instance, had reportedly traveled to Costa Rica several times.

Chinchilla has been critical of the current approach to the war on drugs, saying that she is open to dialogue on alternatives. In an interview last year, she called drug trafficking the greatest threat her country has ever faced.

Costa Rica has dismantled 619 drug trafficking cells since 2006, according to a report by InfoSurHoy, of which nearly one third were “narco-families,” where entire clans, up to the grandparents, were involved in the drug trade. The emergence of narco-families does not bode well for Costa Rica, as many of Mexico's and Colombia’s largest drug cartels were first built around family units, the director of the Mexico Institute at The Woodrow Wilson Center told InfoSurHoy.  

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Tags

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BOLIVIA / 8 MAR 2023

InSight Crime reviews Latin America and the Caribbean's cocaine seizure date from 2022 to find out what it reveals about…

COCAINE / 23 MAY 2022

Killings linked to drug trafficking disputes are soaring in Costa Rica’s Caribbean province of Limón, as surging cocaine flows and…

COLOMBIA / 13 FEB 2023

Seizures of creepy marijuana from Colombia are popping around Latin America. But is the situation as creepy as it looks?…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…