President Rodrigo Chaves-Robles and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele-Ortez on Wednesday led the groundbreaking ceremony for what will become Costa Rica’s new maximum-security prison, the Center for High Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO) in Alajuela Province.

Authorities said Bukele’s visit was significant due to his administration’s success in sharply reducing crime in El Salvador in recent years.

Costa Rica’s new prison is modeled after El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison that has become the centerpiece of Bukele’s security strategy. That policy has been defined in part by a state of exception that has remained in effect since March 2022.

Chaves opened his remarks by thanking Bukele for attending the ceremony and defended the legitimacy of the visit, which had drawn criticism from some sectors because it occurred just weeks ahead of the country’s presidential and legislative elections.

Costa Rica’s presidential campaign officially began in October 2025, when the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) issued its formal call to the polls. Voters are scheduled to cast ballots on Feb. 1, 2026, and 20 presidential candidates have been cleared to compete.

Earlier this week, the TSE dismissed a complaint seeking to block Bukele from entering Costa Rica during the current pre-election period.

 

Bukele said the nature of crime in El Salvador is not identical to that of Costa Rica, but he stressed that criminals, gangs and drug traffickers operate in similar ways across countries.

He said that just a few years ago, before the Salvadoran government intervened aggressively in public security, El Salvador ranked among the world’s most dangerous countries, recording nearly 4,000 homicides per year.

Costa Rica remains well below that level, registering close to 900 homicides in 2025, according to data from the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ).

Still, Bukele warned of the dangers of allowing organized crime to expand. “When insecurity increases, employment declines, education becomes more difficult and the economy slows down,” he said. “People stop going out, businesses close early, investment drops and tourism disappears.”

He added that Costa Rica still has time to avoid what he described as a “dictatorship of criminality.”

Bukele also compared organized crime to cancer, saying it spreads quietly before its damage becomes evident. “When cancer begins, it is almost undetectable. It’s there, it’s growing, it’s causing damage, but it’s not detected. That’s what happened in El Salvador,” he said. “The first gangs that arrived didn’t even commit murders. Then people said, ‘They only kill each other,’ and eventually innocent people started to die.”

The CACCO project is expected to cost about $35 million and is scheduled to open in January 2027.

Once completed, the facility is expected to house more than 5,000 inmates across five buildings. Authorities say it will hold members of organized crime groups, violent offenders, inmates eligible for extradition, prisoners considered security risks and individuals requiring special protection.

The visit marked Bukele’s second official trip to Costa Rica. He last visited in November 2024, when he met with Chaves and toured the country’s main prison. During that visit, Chaves awarded Bukele the Juan Rafael Mora Porras Distinction in recognition of El Salvador’s crime-reduction efforts.

Bukele is widely known for his aggressive anti-gang strategy, often referred to as “mano dura” policies. Since March 2022, he has governed under a continuous state of exception that suspends key civil liberties to combat gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18. As part of that campaign, more than 85,000 people have been arrested, giving El Salvador the highest incarceration rate in the world.