Published on Saturday, October 17, 2026
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

President Laura Fernández-Delgado is visiting El Salvador, where she announced plans to implement a “tough-on-crime” strategy inspired by the policies pursued by her Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Armando Bukele-Ortez.

During a press conference on Friday, President Fernández said the purpose of her visit was to see firsthand how El Salvador’s policies work and learn how to implement similar measures in Costa Rica in the future to significantly reduce crime.

“I came to learn about that experience firsthand, with a firm commitment to learning from what has worked and applying those lessons to our own national fight against crime,” she said.

According to Fernández, Costa Rica still has time to prevent a further escalation of violence and narco-terrorism, which she described as a cancer destroying the country’s security.

“We want to learn from the best, from those who managed to remove that cancer from their country. Costa Rica has that cancer, and I fear it has metastasized in some parts of the country. But we are treating it with the best medicine applied by the president,” Fernández said, referring to Nayib Bukele’s crime-reduction policies.

 

“And I have a message for criminals: We are waiting for you, ready to put you in the CACCO high-security prison,” she added, referring to the facility inaugurated earlier this week.

“The results achieved in El Salvador are worthy of admiration. That is why our country has been studying and observing its approach to replicate those results,” she added.

Costa Rica inaugurated CACCO, a new maximum-security prison, on Wednesday as part of a national strategy to tighten control over high-risk inmates and reduce crime.

The new Costa Rican prison is modeled after El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). The facility is expected to accommodate more than 5,000 inmates across five buildings.

According to statistics released by Nayib Bukele’s government, El Salvador has experienced a dramatic and unprecedented decline in crime and homicide rates since he took office in June 2019, positioning the country as one of the safest in the Western Hemisphere.

In 2019, the homicide rate stood at around 50 per 100,000 residents, following a peak of 103 to 106 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015. By 2025, the rate had fallen to 1.36 per 100,000 residents. Projections and preliminary data for 2026 put the figure at 0.97, making El Salvador the country with the lowest homicide rate in Central America and one of the safest in Latin America.

Meanwhile, Bukele congratulated Fernández on the inauguration of the Center for High Containment Against Organized Crime (CACCO), a maximum-security prison modeled after El Salvador’s massive prison facility.


In addition to meeting with her Salvadoran counterpart, Fernández’s itinerary included a tour of El Salvador’s CECOT prison on Friday.

Fernández’s visit to CECOT prison comes amid an announcement by President Bukele that authorities are beginning a process to evaluate the criminal profiles of approximately 10,600 inmates who have been convicted of various offenses but do not necessarily belong to criminal organizations.

Approximately 14,500 inmates at CECOT are considered members of criminal gangs or narco-terrorist organizations, according to El Salvador’s Ministry of Justice.

Fernández also signed a bilateral agreement to combat transnational crime. The agreement includes learning from and adopting successful strategies used in El Salvador’s fight against crime, including greater police coordination, improved intelligence gathering to combat drug trafficking, increased surveillance of seaports and airports, and cooperation with the United States and El Salvador.

President Fernández is traveling in El Salvador accompanied by her husband, Jeffrey Umaña, and the Minister of Justice and Peace, Gabriel Aguilar. She and her delegation are expected to return to Costa Rica on Sunday.

Costa Rica currently operates 11 prisons housing approximately 17,000 inmates, according to the Ministry of Justice and Peace.

The Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) reported 600 homicides nationwide as of September 2026, just four fewer than during the same period in 2025.

In January, then-President Rodrigo Chaves-Robles and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele-Ortez led the groundbreaking ceremony for the CACCO prison. Authorities said Bukele’s visit was significant because of his administration’s success in sharply reducing crime in El Salvador in recent years.

The Ministry of Justice and Peace is the state-owned organization that oversees the prison system in the country.

The OIJ operates under the Supreme Court of Justice and is responsible for conducting criminal investigations nationwide. It also exercises police authority throughout the country.

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