Agents of the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ), acting under the functional direction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, detained two judges and a judicial agent from the Pococí courts, in the Caribbean province of Limón this morning. The Deputy Prosecutor’s Office for Probity, Transparency and Anti-Corruption identified the three as suspects in the alleged offenses of procuring impunity, bribery, corruptor liability and misuse of public property. None has been charged, and all are presumed innocent while the investigation proceeds.
In a written statement, the Public Prosecutor’s Office said the conduct under investigation took place between 2023 and 2026, when the accused apparently used their positions to collaborate with a group dedicated to drug trafficking. Investigators are examining whether they accepted gifts and neglected their duties in order to use their offices for personal ends.
The three were identified by the surnames Rojas, a woman, Valverde and Ramírez. Each is to give a sworn statement before authorities decide what precautionary measures to request. Investigators say the alleged favoring benefited defendants in a case known to police as Colorado, tied to the criminal structure attributed to Alejandro Arias Monge, known by the alias Diablo.
In that file, prosecutors are examining Arias Monge’s partner, his sister and former brothers-in-law on suspicion of money laundering. When the case became public, authorities said the relatives were not directly connected to the violence attributed to the network itself. The Pococí penal court closed for the day as a result.
A sign posted at the entrance advised that no service would be provided today and the closure was attributed to searches being carried out in the offices of the detained officials. Separately, Nils Rojas, acting deputy director general of the OIJ, confirmed that one of the day’s operations was carried out at the offices of the Judicial Branch’s solidarity association in Barrio Luján, San José.
The preliminary hearing in the Colorado case was scheduled to open on September 1 before the court specializing in organized crime, with 33 people named in the file and proceedings expected to run about a month. Prosecutors allege the organization operated principally in Limón and Pococí, where they say it managed drug distribution and sales.
Arias Monge was captured on July 24 in San Bernardino de Sarapiquí at the close of an operation authorities named Némesis. He remains in custody at La Reforma prison in Alajuela. The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of $500,000 for information leading to his capture. Michael Soto, director of the OIJ, said in July that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had not formally requested his extradition, and no extradition order was in force at that time.
Today’s detentions extend a pattern of alleged institutional infiltration around the same network. In August, wiretap material surfaced alleging that police officers had tipped off the group ahead of operations. A separate police intelligence report linked 116 officers to criminal groups across several provinces. Until Tuesday, however, the accusations had centered on police rather than on the courts.
The judiciary’s capacity to pursue these cases has itself become politically contested. The Judicial Branch has spent much of the year arguing against reductions to its budget, and thousands of people filled a plaza in San José in August in a demonstration organized in defense of judicial independence.
The Judicial Branch had not issued a statement on the three officials’ employment status as of Tuesday afternoon. Detention in Costa Rica does not by itself constitute a charge; prosecutors must present detainees before a judge, who then decides whether to impose precautionary measures.
Pococí and the surrounding Caribbean lowlands have absorbed a disproportionate share of the country’s organized crime prosecutions over the past two years. The allegation that officials inside the courthouse hearing those cases were working the other side, if it is borne out, would mark a shift in what investigators have so far described as a problem of policing.
