Costa Rica has traditionally been perceived as a bastion of security in crime-ravaged Central America. But recently the country has experienced record levels of violence and drug trafficking, which authorities have attributed to its growing role as a drug transshipment point.
Local crime groups are growing ever more sophisticated and resorting to lethal violence to secure control. They now pose a major security threat for the government and are becoming increasingly involved with transnational criminal organizations and expanding their operations in Costa Rica.
Organized crime has extended its infiltration into Costa Rica’s political sphere and security institutions, triggering corruption cases at increasingly high levels of the state. This became most evident with the 2025 arrest of Celso Gamboa Sánchez, a former Supreme Court magistrate and ex-security minister, who was accused of collaborating with drug traffickers.
The deterioration of Costa Rica’s security situation led to the approval of a constitutional reform allowing the extradition of the country’s citizens for drug trafficking and terrorism offenses, an unprecedented measure in the country’s recent history.
Geography
Located on the Central American isthmus, Costa Rica shares a 309-kilometer northern border with Nicaragua and a 330-kilometer southeastern border with Panama, acting as a link and transit zone for cocaine shipments among those countries.
With large stretches of unpatrolled coastline and several important ports along the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, Costa Rica’s geography offers organized crime groups land, aerial, and maritime trafficking routes.
The country’s strategic position became even more important in 2019 with the opening of the Moín Container Terminal, operated by APM Terminals, which transformed the Caribbean port city of Limón into one of the main departure points for cocaine shipments to Europe. Costa Rica is now one of the main points of origin for cocaine seized in European ports, especially in logistics hubs such as Antwerp in Belgium.
History
In contrast to many other nations in Latin America, Costa Rica has largely avoided major armed conflicts and periods of military rule. For many decades, the country’s relatively strong institutions and stable democratic system hindered the development of powerful homegrown crime groups, even though transnational criminal organizations exploited the country’s geography to use it as a transit point.
In the 1990s, Costa Rica was an important transit point for cocaine shipments moving from South America to the United States. Local actors gradually became involved in drug trafficking, mainly through coastal networks of fishermen who provided fuel, transportation, and logistical support to foreign traffickers, primarily Colombians, operating along Caribbean and Pacific routes. As other countries strengthened their counternarcotics controls, Costa Rica saw increased use of its ports and coastlines for the movement and storage of cocaine.
In the 2000s, the volume of cocaine moving through the country increased, and local groups ceased to be mere auxiliaries and began taking on more active roles, providing logistics, transportation, and storage services to transnational drug trafficking organizations. These groups also leaned in to further corrupting officials at regional ports and airports to facilitate the movement of drugs. At the same time, transnational criminal networks began using Costa Rican citizens for money laundering operations, relying on local banks and other legitimate businesses.
In the 2010s, rising cocaine production in South America and expanding European demand transformed Costa Rica’s role within global drug trafficking chains. The country consolidated itself as a major cocaine distribution hub for shipments bound for Europe and the United States, and smaller local gangs began participating directly in international drug trafficking. In late 2011, then-President Laura Chinchilla warned about the severity of the threat posed by transnational organized crime amid a sustained rise in homicides and the strengthening of local criminal groups tied to drug trafficking.
The escalation of violence was driven primarily by disputes among local gangs over control of domestic markets, ports, and export routes. In 2023, Costa Rica recorded 907 homicides—a rate of 17.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants—the highest figure in its history.
Pressure on institutions that had historically remained resilient against organized crime started to increase, especially in areas such as port security and public administration.
At the same time, signs of the convergence of drug trafficking and illegal mining began to emerge in the country’s Pacific national parks, where criminal groups have started diversifying their income sources and using extractive activities to launder illicit proceeds.
Criminal Groups
In addition to collaborating with transnational groups in illicit activities related to the drug trade, homegrown criminal organizations in Costa Rica engage in a number of underworld enterprises, such as petty drug dealing, sex trafficking, organ trafficking, illegal mining and logging, as well as human smuggling and contraband. Highly sophisticated money laundering operations have also been uncovered.
Various transnational criminal groups are known to operate in Costa Rica, often working in collaboration with local partners.
There have been numerous indications lately that powerful Mexican groups like the Sinaloa Cartel maintain a presence in Costa Rica, primarily to facilitate the transshipment of drugs. Officials have even accused Mexican criminal organizations of sending Costa Rican triggermen abroad for specialized training.
Costa Rican authorities have also warned about Colombian crime groups—including the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—FARC)—who are engaged in arms and drug trafficking as well as money laundering in the country.
Drug traffickers from other Central American nations have also used Costa Rica as a base of operations and as a hideout. In November 2016, the leader of Honduras’ Atlantic Cartel, Wilter Neptalí Blanco Ruíz, was arrested in Costa Rica just weeks after fleeing his home country. More recently, authorities have pointed to the growing presence of the “H,” also known as “the Olanchos,” a Honduran criminal network that operates drug trafficking routes through Limón while its top leaders remain based in Honduras.
Transnational criminal groups from Europe, like Italy’s primary importer and wholesaler of cocaine, the ‘Ndrangheta, have also been linked to the drug trade in Costa Rica. In particular, local criminal groups have helped larger groups exploit the massive expansion of the remote and poorly managed Port of Limón.
Local authorities estimate that there are between 100 and 300 criminal groups in the country, most of them dedicated to microtrafficking and extortion, although some have the capacity to coordinate international shipments. But while many structures remain small and fragmented, some groups have sought to consolidate greater territorial control and coordinate international cocaine trafficking operations, especially along the Caribbean coast.
The group has carved out a place of its own and remained independent from transnational networks, controlling important drug trafficking routes through the provinces of Limón and Alajuela and acting as a reliable link in the drug trafficking chain from Colombia to Mexico and the United States.
The South Caribbean Cartel is another criminal group that has gained prominence along the Caribbean coast, especially in Limón, where it controls local drug sales points, access to ports, and cocaine export routes. The province of Limón has become the main epicenter of drug trafficking and organized crime-related violence in Costa Rica due to its strategic importance for cocaine exports to Europe and the United States.
The authorities have gone so far as to describe the group as the country’s first major drug trafficking organization. Some of its alleged leaders are facing justice in the United States and have been linked to high-level officials, reflecting how local criminal actors have evolved from structures subordinate to foreign networks into organizations with greater operational autonomy and international coordination capacity.
Security Forces
Costa Rica has not had a military since it was abolished by the 1948 constitution. The country has a police body called the Public Force (Fuerza Pública), which is controlled by the Public Security Ministry (Ministerio de Seguridad Pública) and is charged with ensuring security in rural areas as well as along the country’s borders. Recently, the ministry’s budget has grown significantly, with a 2026 allocation of $718 million, representing an increase of nearly 10% compared to the previous year.
The judiciary maintains a separate police force, the Judicial Police, under the authority of the Judicial Investigation Agency (Organismo de Investigación Judicial – OIJ), which is attached to the Ministry of Justice and Peace.
Costa Rica has continued to receive international support, mainly from the United States, including a US$24 million security assistance package announced in 2023 to strengthen the police forces and judicial system.
But despite these efforts and international backing, concerns have emerged over the infiltration of organized crime into the security forces and judicial authorities. Allegations of corruption have increased, especially in key drug trafficking areas such as Limón and border regions. Authorities have proposed measures to increase police efficiency, including shortening officer training periods, sparking debate over the potential negative impact on the force’s professionalization.
Costa Rica’s judicial branch constitutes an independent branch of the government and follows a civil law system common throughout Latin America. It is comprised of the Supreme Court (Corte Suprema de Justicia), appeals courts (Tribunales de Apelaciones) and district courts (Juzgados de Distrito). The Supreme Court has a specific chamber that hears criminal cases.
The Public Ministry (Ministerio Público) and the Judicial Investigation Agency (Organismo de Investigación Judicial) are Costa Rica’s two most important judiciary bodies, with the former responsible for determining the scope of investigations and the latter responsible for criminal investigations. The Public Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalía General) is the highest body in the Public Ministry.
While Costa Rica is still considered one of the countries with the lowest levels of impunity in the region, the growing number of cases related to drug trafficking, homicides, and organized crime has placed increasing pressure on prosecutors and judges. At the same time, authorities face mounting difficulties investigating criminal structures that are becoming increasingly sophisticated and transnational. Recent cases have also fueled concerns about possible links between public officials, judicial actors, and drug trafficking networks in a country historically regarded as a regional exception in terms of institutional stability.
To date, three high-profile Costa Rican figures are facing US justice for their alleged participation in transnational cocaine trafficking networks linked to Colombia and Mexico: former Security Minister Celso Gamboa Sánchez; Edwin López Vega, alias “Pecho de Rata”; and Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba, alias “Shock.”
Prisons
Costa Rica’s prison system is controlled by the Justice and Peace Ministry (Ministerio de Justicia y Paz) and managed by the General Directorate of Social Adaptation (Dirección General de Adaptación Social), while the Ombudsman monitors and reports on prison conditions. Prison overcrowding reached 29.5% in 2025.
In response to this problem, the Costa Rican government announced the construction of a mega-prison inspired by the Salvadoran model to house the country’s most violent criminals.
But the growth of local gangs and violence linked to drug trafficking has increased pressure on the prison system, deepening longstanding problems of overcrowding and internal control.
