Costa Rican President Laura Fernández toured El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) today, two days after opening a maximum-security prison in Alajuela modeled on it. Salvadoran officials walked her through the facility and explained how it is run. Fernández landed at San Óscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport, where Salvadoran Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill Tinoco received her.
She then flew by helicopter to the prison in the department of San Vicente, about 74 kilometers (46 miles) from San Salvador, according to Salvadoran media. Defense Minister René Francis Merino Monroy, Justice and Public Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro and CECOT director Belarmino García led the tour. Costa Rica’s Justice and Peace Minister, Gabriel Aguilar, traveled with Fernández.
CECOT has an announced capacity of up to 40,000 inmates. It is surrounded by concrete walls more than 11 meters (36 feet) high and electrified fencing, and it has become the centerpiece of President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gangs. Fernández was scheduled to meet Bukele at Casa Presidencial in San Salvador later today to discuss security and regional cooperation, and Salvadoran authorities called a press conference for 3:30 p.m. No agreements between the two governments had been announced as of Friday afternoon.
Before the trip, Fernández said she wanted to study CECOT’s operating model in depth, beyond its physical design. At the opening of Costa Rica’s new prison, she thanked Bukele for El Salvador’s support in the fight against organized crime. The High Containment Center Against Organized Crime (CACCO) opened Wednesday in the La Reforma prison complex in San Rafael de Alajuela. It is designed to hold 5,100 high-profile inmates in five modules of 1,020 each. Aguilar has said it will reach full occupancy in December.
The construction contract, awarded to Edificar in November 2025, was worth about 16.8 billion colones, roughly $33 million. The prison opens as Costa Rica’s inmate population sits at a record 21,173. The opening has drawn legal and political pushback. An association representing prisoners and their families has filed an appeal with the Constitutional Chamber seeking to halt transfers to the facility, arguing it poses health and safety risks to inmates.
At the inauguration, Fernández accused magistrates, prosecutors and judges of siding with criminals, deepening a dispute between the executive branch and the judiciary. Magistrates invited to the ceremony did not attend. Supporters of El Salvador’s model credit it with a steep drop in homicides, while human rights groups have criticized mass detentions and conditions inside its prisons. Costa Rica recorded 873 homicides in 2025, a rate of 16.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ).
