Costa Rica will deepen its cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to go after what the country's attorney general calls "invisible drug traffickers" — politicians, business executives and professionals alleged to hide links to the drug trade behind respectable public profiles.
Attorney General Carlo Diaz, re-elected by the judiciary on Monday to another four-year term, laid out the shift in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. "This second phase (of DEA cooperation) focuses on people we have termed 'invisible drug traffickers'," Diaz said, describing a move beyond an initial phase of joint missions that targeted members of criminal organizations. "These are business people, sometimes professionals or politicians, who are successful or highly visible. But behind that facade lies a direct link with these kinds of activities." He said investigators would show no leniency regardless of how senior the suspects are.
Extradition changes the game
Diaz pointed to a watershed in Costa Rican law enforcement: the country's ability to extradite its own nationals to the United States to face charges. Six people have been extradited so far, he said, and another 25 extradition proceedings are underway. The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the expanded operations.
Costa Rica has worked with the DEA for years to arrest dozens of alleged traffickers, whom authorities blame for a surge in homicides in a country long considered one of the safest in the region. Central America is a key corridor for moving narcotics from South America toward the United States, and Costa Rica's ports and coastline have become prized routes.
Politics behind the announcement
The announcement lands in the middle of a tense institutional relationship. Diaz has repeatedly clashed with the government of President Laura Fernandez, a conservative ally of U.S. President Donald Trump who has aligned Costa Rica closely with Washington on security and joined Trump's Shield of the Americas initiative against drug trafficking and organized crime. That means the expanded DEA partnership is one of the few areas where the prosecutor's office and the presidency pull in the same direction — even as they dispute credit and control.
Why it matters, and what happens next
Targeting alleged traffickers inside politics and business raises the stakes considerably: it tests whether Costa Rica's institutions can investigate powerful figures without the effort being read as political persecution. If the second phase produces arrests of prominent names, it would mark a turning point in the country's fight against organized crime — and in its security relationship with the United States. The 25 pending extradition cases will be an early measure of how far the new approach reaches.
*Reporting based on Reuters.*