During the meeting that was held in San José, Costa Rica, Attorney General Francisco Barbosa presented joint results with the neighboring country that have made it possible to impact 11 drug trafficking structures.
The Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, and his counterpart in Costa Rica, Warner Molina Ruiz, signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen judicial cooperation between the two countries in the fight against transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, and people, migrant smuggling, financial crimes, and money laundering.
“It is not possible to fight transnational crime that is moving and that is being dynamic, if we lock ourselves in the jurisdictional structures of our countries, we also have to be dynamic, we have to apply the techniques of investigative and judicial itinerancy in our countries, and we also have to concentrate investigative activities that are carried out in our countries, that is why this memorandum is so important”, highlighted the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, during the signing of the agreement.
This memorandum includes the exchange of information that facilitates the investigative activities carried out against these crimes, as well as the development of operational plans and joint investigation teams.
“This memorandum that we have signed means an opportunity for Costa Rica to improve the fight against transnational organized crime, it is not a secret for our country that in the last 15 years we have been facing increasingly complex criminal phenomena (…) this signature allows us to speed up cooperation with the authorities of our sister Republic of Colombia and we hope that we continue along this path, cultivating increasingly intense relations to achieve a common front against the criminal groups that they are undermining the institutional framework”, said the Attorney General of Costa Rica, Warner Molina Ruiz.
During the signing of this agreement, the head of the Colombian Prosecutor´s Office explained some of the actions that are carried out to deal with criminal phenomena that affect the region.
Among them, it stands out the resolution that created the strategy to deal with criminal phenomena of human trafficking and migrant smuggling, the associated or related crimes, signed on March 30.
This strategy seeks to investigate and prosecute those responsible for these crimes both nationally and transnationally. For this task, a Research and Coordination Working Group was formed that will have one investigator and three analysts, and support staff.
Currently, the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office is conducting at least 16 investigations where Costa Rica, Panama, or the Dominican Republic would be the countries of transit or destination of the phenomenon of migrant smuggling.
The joint work with neighboring countries in the fight against this crime will make it possible to identify the routes used by criminal organizations and thus be able to attack them in a binational and in more effective manner.
The Attorney Francisco Barbosa stressed that this regional strategy also aims at impacting the finances of criminal organizations. Currently, there are 44 structural investigations about money laundering that seek to dismantle structures in Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.
In relation to Costa Rica, 13 people have been prosecuted for the crimes of illicit enrichment, use of frontmen, falsehood in a private document, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
These people allegedly belong to money laundering and drug trafficking networks.
Fight against drug trafficking
Concerning the fight against the drug trafficking phenomenon in Costa Rica, 11 structures have been impacted, 39 people have been arrested and 9.8 tons of cocaine hydrochloride and 11 motor ships have been seized.
Likewise, about the results obtained in Colombia and other countries with destination or transit in Costa Rica, 18 cases were identified, a criminal organization was dismantled and 51 arrests were achieved.
In addition, 12.1 tons of derivatives between cocaine base and cocaine hydrochloride; 5.4 tons of marijuana; 13 motor ships, and 2 semi-submersibles were seized.
When we speak, results follow.