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Published Thursday, August 20, 2020
The U.S. Coast Guard captures
four drug trafficking suspects
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Costa Rican Drug Police received the crew of a ship detained by the U.S. Coast Guard last week, as suspects of international drug trafficking.
According to the police report issued on Wednesday, the U.S Coast Guard managed to arrest a ship, registered in Costa Rica as a vessel for artisanal fishing named "Pirates of the Caribbean 1."
After searching the boat, the Coast Guards found and seized a shipment of 236 marijuana packages for the total weight of 486 kilograms.
In addition to the drugs, the U.S. Coast Guard seized seven containers with fuel.
The crew was taken to Aleman Port in Limón Province where the Costa Rican police detained the four suspects, who were identified with the surnames:
- Paniagua-Rivera, Costa Rican, 30, with a criminal record. Already charged twice for aggravated robbery.
-Thompson-White, Costa Rican, 23, with a criminal record for aggravated robbery and entering a jail with drugs.
-Jiménez-Marín, Costa Rican, 56, with a criminal record for transporting drugs and assault with weapons. He also has an arrest warrant for a case of assault with a weapon.
- Wrights-Bodden, a Honduran man, 25.
The four suspects were jailed at the Public Ministry cells, where they were interrogated by the judicial agents. A judge of the Criminal Court ordered six months of pre-trial jail and accused them of international drug trafficking.
This is the second case of drug trafficking suspects detained with the support of the U.S. Coast Guards this month.
On Aug. 2, in a matter of two hours, the U.S. Coast Guard crew, in a joint effort with the National Coast Guards Service, intercepted two boats detaining six men and seized approximately 915 kilos of cocaine, announced the Ministry of Security.
According to the ministry, in the first case, with the support of the U.S. Coast Guard plane, a boat was detected 50 kilometers away from Punta Burica Beach, on the Pacific Coast border between Costa Rica and Panama.
When the Costa Rican coast guards located the ship, the crew tried to flee and threw packages into the ocean. However, after chasing them over a distance of approximately three kilometers, the coastguards intercepted the boat, detained the four crew members, and recovered the drug that was floating in the Pacific.
The boat was registered with the name "God and time." The crew of four men consisted of two Colombian nationals surnamed Murillo-Colorado, and Orobio-Mondicnero. Also, an Ecuadorian man surnamed Tigre-Astudillo and a Costa Rican surnamed Dosman-Espinoza.
The drug shipment was recovered by the Coastguards, who took it to the Golfito Port in Puntarenas Province. Once there, the agents of the Drug Control Police reviewed the packages, reporting 415 packages of cocaine, weighing approximately one kilogram each.
The same day when a U.S. Coast Guard’s plane returning to the United States detected a speedboat located about 70 km offshore from Punta Burica Beach.
The officers of the National Coast Guards Service located the speedboat and arrested two Costa Rican men, surnamed Esquivel- Solís and Chavarria- Zepeda.
The detained boat, registered with the name "Commando V" carried a shipment of several bags containing a large number of packages.
When the suspects and the drugs were brought to port, officers from the Drug Control Police verified that they were 500 packages of cocaine, each weighing approximately one kilogram.
In both cases, the suspects were taken to the cells of the Public Ministry where they were interrogated by the judicial agents and waiting until a judge orders six months of pre-jail against them for the alleged crime of drug trafficking.
Video of the suspects being captured can be reached on the Facebook page of the Ministry of Security.
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