President Rodrigo Chaves is scheduled to travel to El Salvador on Thursday, Dec. 11, for an official visit with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.


Chaves said he received an invitation from Bukele to visit the country and hold bilateral meetings. The two leaders are expected to meet between Thursday and Friday, with Chaves set to return to Costa Rica on Saturday.


The agenda includes discussions on regional security, bilateral trade and ongoing cooperation between both nations.


As part of the visit, Chaves and Bukele will tour El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, on Friday. The facility is located in the Tecoluca District of San Vicente Province and opened in January 2023. It is the largest prison in Latin America, with a capacity for 40,000 inmates.

 

Costa Rica plans to build a similar high-security facility modeled after CECOT. The project, officially named the High Containment Center Against Organized Crime, carries an estimated cost of $35 million.

Of that amount, $15 million was approved by Congress in August to finance the initial phase. The remainder is expected to be allocated in next year’s national budget.

In November, the Ministry of Justice announced that private company Edificadora Centroamericana Rapiparedes Sociedad Anónima (Edificar) had been contracted to build the new prison. Officials said additional details on the construction timeline will be released in the coming weeks.

The facility will be built near the existing Jorge Arturo Montero Castro Prison, commonly known as La Reforma, in Alajuela Province. Plans call for roughly 31,000 square meters of construction on a lot spanning more than 90,000 square meters.

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

Construction is scheduled to begin this month and take about one year.

Bukele last visited Costa Rica in November 2024, when he met with Chaves and toured the country's principal prison. During that visit, Chaves awarded Bukele the Juan Rafael Mora Porras Distinction in recognition of his crime-reduction efforts in El Salvador.