The government of Costa Rica on Wednesday inaugurated artificial-intelligence scanners to inspect containers at two of the country’s main ports, in an effort to curb drug trafficking to Europe and the United States, authorities said.
The devices were installed at the Port of Caldera, the main Pacific port area in Puntarenas province, and at the Gastón Kogan Kogan terminal in the port of Moín, near the Caribbean city of Limón.
These scanners, a donation from the United States valued at about 20 million dollars, allow visualization of the internal structure and cargo densities inside port containers.
“The mission is to fight every day against the scourge of drug trafficking, both internationally and within our own house,” said Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves during the presentation of the scanner at the Port of Caldera.
The scanners “will be a turning point in our country’s port security,” the president added. Security Minister Mario Zamora said that with these two state-of-the-art devices, Costa Rica now has scanners “in all its ports.”
Costa Rica is facing a surge in operations by Colombian and Mexican cartels, which have managed to use our country as a logistics and transshipment hub for drugs to various destinations, mainly the United States, the world’s largest consumer of cocaine.
Due to the penetration of drug trafficking, Costa Rica, formerly the safest country in Central America, ended 2024 with a homicide rate of 16.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, more than double the global average.
Between 2022 and 2024, Costa Rica seized 81 tons of drugs, a quantity surpassed only by Panama. The scanners aim to “prevent the export of drugs” hidden in containers with fruit and other products “to both Europe and the United States,” Zamora noted.
In June, Costa Rican police arrested former Security Minister and former judge Celso Gamboa, who faces an extradition process to the United States on drug-trafficking charges.
