The high levels of violence indicate how once peaceful Costa Rica is feeling the tight grip of cocaine trafficking. But is the Central American country on a similar path as Ecuador to the south?

Homicides in Costa Rica have been rising slowly for the past few years, but will rise to an all-time high in 2023 with 907 murders recorded, or 17.2 murders per 100,000. This was a 38% increase in killings from 2022, where they were 12.2 per 100,000a huge increase over previous years. In 2012, the county reported only 407 murders.

To combat the continued violence, in mid-October President Rodrigo Chaves Robles issued an executive decree allowing law enforcement to use automatic weapons in certain situations. The move, intended to level the playing field against criminals who are increasingly heavily armed, was accompanied by a video from the presidential office.

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“In a battle, high-caliber automatic weapons like the AK-47 give the power… This unequal battle must end. That’s why, while some want to continue to embrace those who call the shots, the government will do everything in its power to balance things out,” the video commentary said.

The Caribbean port city of Costa Rica limonit in Limon province, along with the nearby container port of Moín, is a drug-trafficking hot spot and a favorite departure point for cocaine shipments to Europe. In 2023, 214 murders were recorded in the province of Limon, a greater number than in San José, despite a population three times smaller. The region’s biggest drug-trafficking groups want access to these ports to get cocaine out of Latin America and local partners to help them. As a result, local criminal organizations in Costa Rica are becoming increasingly powerful and sophisticated.

The experience of nearby Ecuador is a cautionary tale for Costa Rica, showing how easily organized crime violence can be unleashed from a country in control. Bordering Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, foreign transnational drug trafficking networks have taken root in the country over the past few years as it pushes record breaker tonnage of cocaine to international markets. The murders in Ecuador he jumped 74.5% year on year in 2023 to 8,008, a presidential candidate was assassinated, public security is weak, and kidnapping is wide-spread. Now, the country is currently stuck in a costly situation war on gangswhich were encouraged and strengthened by the profits of the cocaine trade.

InSight Crime Analysis

Costa Rica is far from Ecuador’s situation, but a number of red flags point to a worsening security outlook and are putting authorities on edge.

Homicides remain high in San José, the country’s capital and most populous area, and Limon, but violence is also increasing in other areas such as Puntarenas, on the Pacific coast.

Corruption cases involving members of the judiciary more than doubled between 2019 and 2023. Low police salaries, which start at around $600 a month, have long been a point of concern on the force’s vulnerability to bribery and corruption.

SEE ALSO: Durán: A window into the explosion of organized crime in Ecuador

Moreover, it appears that organized crime is exploiting the growing social inequalities in the country. Puntarenas singled out Mary Fran Malone, a professor of political science and international affairs at the University of New Hampshire, who recently wrote a study on perceptions of insecurity in Costa Rica.

“It’s not just that Puntarenas is a port area. If you look at economic activity levels for 18- to 25-year-old men and education levels and all these indicators, you can see that systematically the number of people who have been marginalized has increased… and that will be a magnet for gang recruitment,” she told InSight Crime.

Criminal groups are recruiting people as young as 13, Costa Rica’s Department of Judicial Investigation (Organismo de Investigación Judicial – OIJ) said. Randall Zúñiga, head of the OIJ, said there are about 5,000 active gang members in the country. And with the increased availability of cocaine, the country’s local organized crime groups are becoming stronger and more complex, conformable to a report on the evolution of gangs in Pavas, San José.

However, despite this, Costa Rica is in a stronger position than Ecuador to counter the growing threat from organized crime groups.

Control of Ecuador’s prison system has been vital to the evolution of the country’s criminal gangs. Gangs like Lobos, Chonerosand Tiguerones incubated in the prison system for decades before committing assassinations on the country’s streets. As early as 2007, then-president Rafael Correa warned of the danger of gang control of prisons, description the country’s prison system as “a ticking time bomb”. But 15 years later, the authorities could not prevent it repeated prison massacres which announced the increasing power of the gangs.

Costa Rica has no such prison problem. “Gangs don’t control prisons like they do in other countries,” Zúñiga told InSight Crime. The country has a low percentage of remand prisoners – about half that of Ecuador – conformable at World Prison Brief. This reduces the mixing of people awaiting trial with gang members and suppresses a traditional source of gang recruitment.

In response to corruption concerns, Chaves Robles on July 30 announced the largest pay increase for police officers in the history of the country. In addition, widespread corruption is much lower in Costa Rica than in Ecuador, conformable on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, helping to slow down any attempt by criminal groups to penetrate and influence public institutions.

Costa Rica has no military to mount a militarized response to the encroachment of organized crime, having disbanded its armed forces in 1949. However, the country is alert to the threats it faces and already appears to be having some success in fighting crime. Homicides this year are expected to drop slightly, Zúñiga told InSight Crime. OIJ rEPORTS indicates a 3.36% decrease in homicides in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year.

In this respect, Costa Rica’s security situation is perhaps closer to Chile than to Ecuador.

In Chile, drug trafficking organizations and the Venezuelan mega-gang Train from Aragua powered by 32% grow in homicides in 2022. A later drop of 7% in 2023 helped ease fears of an Ecuador-like collapse. A clear message from President Gabriel Boric that Chile, and particularly the metropolitan district of Santiago, has a crime problem helped the government move quickly. For example, the government recently added 500 officers of the Santiago police force, announced the construction of a prison where only the leaders of criminal groups would be held and published plans to strengthen its northern border region where much of the violence was centered.

Although the year is not yet over, early indications are that homicides may be down in Costa Rica this year. Once dubbed the Switzerland of Central America, Costa Rica may have greater resilience to transnational organized crime and limit the interest and influence of the global cocaine trade.

Featured image: Costa Rican OIJ members investigate a crime scene following a shooting. Credit: Unidad de Exiliados Nicaraguans