By the
A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Judicial Investigating
Organization said Friday that a
U.S. Citizen identified as Harvey
Lee Bernstein, 65, disappeared
Wednesday.
According to the Judicial report,
Bernstein arrived in Costa Rica on
a vacation trip with two friends.
Judicial agents reserved the names
of friends.
The three U.S. citizens stayed at
a hotel in Barrio Amon*
in San Jose. For reasons of the
investigation, the name of the
hotel was not provided to the
press.
Wednesday the friends did not find
Bernstein at the hotel, so they
went to police to report him
missing.
The case is in the initial stage
of data recovery, so information
is limited.
Judicial agents asked for
cooperation from the public and
said anyone who has seen this
person should call toll-free
800-8000645 or phone 2295 3378.
The judicial agency has
bilingual staff who can handle
calls from foreigners.
A.M. Costa Rica will continue give
information about this new case of
a missing foreigner. The
staff would like to
request readers to share this
story with contacts.
The most recent report of a
foreigners missing was the case of
U.S. businessman William Sean
Creighton-Kopko, who was kidnapped
last Sept. 24.
As A.M. Costa Rica has been
reporting, are eight Costa
Ricans is pretrial jail for
six months.
Five of them were detained in
Costa Rica: a man surnamed
Vega-Aguirre, a woman surnamed
Aguirre-Leal, a man surnamed
Martinez-Chacón, a man surnamed
Ford-Dauman and a woman surnamed
Sanabria-Abarca.
In Spain there are three more
Costa Ricans, also in jail. the
Spanish courts is handling an
extradition request by Costa Rica.
Those suspects were identified as
a man surnamed Morales-Vega, a
woman surnamed Solis-Chaves and a
woman surnamed Vega-Aguirre.
According to the judicial
investigators' reports, two
transit officers, who are now
suspected of being part of the
kidnap ring, one named
Medrano-Vargas and the other
surnamed Jirón-López, followed
Creighton when he left work. When
they reached the site known as Granadilla in
Curridabat*, the officers
pretended they were making a
routine traffic stop and asked him
to pull the car to the side of the
road.
As Creighton complied a group of
four men arrived in a gray pickup
truck and kidnapped him. Those
suspects are identified as:
Morales-Vega, the leader,
Vega-Aguirre, Martínez-Chacón, and
Ford-Dauman. Ford had been
arrested for theft and resisting
arrest.
The men forced the victim into the
pickup and drove to a property in
the village of La Trinidad in
Moravia* where the leader’s
grandmother lives. Her surnamed
was given as Aguirre-Leal.
One of the suspects, Ford-Dauman,
drove the victim’s car away, but
for reasons that are still not
clear, he crashed the car in San Isidro in
Heredia*. The suspect
communicated with the other
kidnappers to report what happened
and then left the car at the crash
site. This vehicle was confiscated
by the police and investigative
analysis was made to collect more
evidence.
After taking the victim to the
property in La Trinidad in
Moravia*, the
suspects communicated several
times with relatives of the
victim. At first, they asked for a
ransom of $5 million, but a
payment of $950,800 was accepted.
The payment was made in bitcoin
currencies in four different
accounts.
The fact that the payment was made
in this type of virtual currency
was of great help for the
investigators who could follow the
trail of the transaction until it
reached three accounts belonging
to three of the suspects.
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Judicial
Investigating
Organization courtesy
photo
Have you seen this
man? A.M. Costa
Rica staff would like to
request readers to share
this story with
contacts.
"One of the bitcoin
accounts was accessed
from the house of
Morales-Vega, identified
as the leader, in Cartago*
and this was one major
clue that helped guide
the investigation," said
Walter Espinoza,
director of the judicial
police.
Once the kidnappers
received the ransom, all
communication between
the suspects and the
victim’s family ceased,
said investigators.
After accessing the
account from Cartago*,
Morales-Vega, left the
country by land to
Panama, then traveled to
El Salvador and Cuba
before finally traveling
to Spain where he went
to the city of Zaragoza*.
Two other people also
left Costa Rica. One is
the man's girlfriend,
Solís-Chaves and his
mother, Vega-Aguirre.
Both women traveled to
Cuba and then to Spain
together.
Once they had gathered
sufficient evidence,
investigators contacted
an organized crime unit
in Spain. Spanish
investigators placed the
three suspects under
surveillance and
monitored them for a
period of approximately
one month until
simultaneous raid could
be coordinated between
Costa Rican and Spanish
police.
Among the results of the
investigation are:
seizure of vehicles,
evidence linking the
suspects to the
withdrawal of the money,
information on the
distribution of that
money to members of the
gang, communications
between the suspects and
records confirming the
places where some of the
suspects surveilled and
tracked the victim.
Investigators theorize
that Creighton was
targeted for two
reasons. The victim had
a good income as result
of his company of
sportbooks, and the gang
members knew that the
victim’s business
involved bitcoin.
They probably thought
that transactions in
bitcoins were more
difficult to detect,
agents suspect.
Investigators are
continuing to interview
the suspects and are
searching for clue at
the sites raided Jan 11.
They are trying to
establish what happened
to the victim and are
continuing to
investigate new possible
sites. “We are not going
to rest until we know
what happened to Mr.
Creighton. We hope to
find him alive, but we
must find him in
whatever conditions he
is," said Espinoza.
*Click
on the blue letters to
reach the place in
google maps.
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