Suspected drug traffickers turned over to Costa Rican authorities

Officials of the United States Coast Guard on Thursday docked in the Pacific port of Caldera to deliver suspected drug traffickers arrested for carrying cocaine aboard two boats with Costa Rican flags a couple weeks ago.

The speedboat “El Anzuelo” was captured 150 miles north of Ecuador, with 506 kilos of cocaine on board. A Costa Rican man and two Mexican nationals were taken into custody.

U.S. Coast Guard officials also detained the vessel “Capitán Alan” off the coast of Quepos, in the southern Pacific of Costa Rica, for transporting 501 kilos of cocaine. The arrested crew members were three Colombians and a Costa Rican.

Costa Rica’s anti-drug commissioner Mauricio Boraschi said the arrests and drug seizures are “a direct result of a joint patrol agreement with the United States.”

Officials from the Public Security Ministry, the Drug Control Police, the DEA, and two prosecutors received the suspects and confiscated drug samples that will be taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory, at the Judicial Investigation Police.

So far this year police have seized five tons and 15 kilos of cocaine, including from a boat carrying 1.7 tons of cocaine nabbed Tuesday on the Caribbean beach of Manzanillo, after being pursued by a Costa Rican Coast Guard patrol.