Former Public Security Minister and Supreme Court magistrate Celso Gamboa Sánchez admitted he held at least two meetings with undercover agents and DEA informants. Gamboa made the statement during an interview with Teletica’s Siete Días program. Journalist Stefanía Colombari asked him directly about recorded conversations presented as evidence in his extradition case to the United States.
“No, I do not deny it,” Gamboa replied. “I do not deny it because I remember the conversation as just one more event among many in which I have participated.”
The meetings occurred on September 20, 2023, and November 7, 2023. Court documents from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas identify participants as DEA collaborators and an undercover FBI agent. In the encounters, Gamboa and the others used coded terms such as “product,” “things,” and “coca” when discussing cocaine, according to the undercover agent’s account.
Gamboa told the interviewer he had spoken about the ease of bringing cocaine into Costa Rica. “If you talk to me and ask if it is easy to enter with cocaine in the country, I tell you yes, it is easy,” he said. “I was Minister of Public Security, I was prosecutor of the Republic, I have the knowledge to tell you that it is extremely easy.”
One of the meetings was recorded with audio and video. Gamboa questioned the legality of those recordings, saying no Costa Rican judge or U.S. judge authorized them. Gamboa remains at La Reforma prison. His extradition to Texas on a DEA plane is set to take place in the coming days. This transfer will be the first under the constitutional reform approved in 2025 for serious crimes such as drug trafficking.
Attorney General Carlo Díaz said the case sends a clear message against organized crime and drug trafficking. In the interview, Gamboa said he intends to provide information to U.S. authorities once in the United States. “There are people who should be in jail with me,” he stated. He specified he would speak about individuals in the Executive Branch who he claims erode Costa Rican institutions, but not about criminal groups.
Gamboa maintains his innocence. He said he plans to win his case in the U.S. and return to Costa Rica by December to be with his family. The U.S. indictment accuses him of coordinating cocaine shipments through Costa Rica with help from government contacts. His alleged co-conspirator, Edwin López Vega, also faces extradition.
Gamboa will appear before U.S. courts, where the justice systems of both countries will determine the outcome.
