Costa Rica’s immigration agency denied the artist permit for Colombian singer Beéle after finding that a contract filed for his concert listed a Colombian citizen as having signed it in Costa Rica on a date when immigration records showed he was not in the country. Immigration Director Omer Badilla cited that discrepancy Saturday as one of three problems that led the agency to reject the paperwork.
The show had been scheduled for last night, at Parque Viva in La Guácima de Alajuela, and was canceled Friday evening, less than 24 hours before the performance. According to Badilla, the production company did not properly delegate legal representation for the contract to the person who filed the permit request with the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration. That person therefore lacked the legal authority to act on the company’s behalf.
A third person then took over the process and submitted a contract stating that it had been signed in Costa Rica by that person and by a Colombian citizen. When officials checked the country’s migratory movement records, Badilla said, they found the Colombian national had not been in Costa Rica on the date the document was supposedly signed.
The third issue, the director said, was that the person handling the permits had outstanding obligations with tax authorities and with the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS). Foreign performers need an artist permit from immigration authorities to work legally in Costa Rica. The official resolution, signed by Badilla, ordered the administrative file closed and denied the request filed on behalf of H Barboza CR Producciones SRL.
The paperwork problems surfaced after the arrest of the company’s owner, concert producer Hugo Benavides Barboza, known professionally as Hugo Barboza. He was among 18 people detained on Oct. 7 in Operation Éxodo, an investigation by the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) and prosecutors into alleged drug trafficking and money laundering by an organization authorities say is led by Edwin Vargas García, alias “Sobrino.”
OIJ Director Michael Soto said at the time that investigators believe the group invested roughly $859,000 in three large-scale entertainment events held in 2024 and 2025. Authorities have not named those events and said the international artists who performed at them have no connection to the case. Barboza is a suspect in the investigation and has not been convicted of any crime.
In the days after the arrest, the production company maintained that the Beéle concert would go ahead as planned. Ticket seller Kuikpei confirmed the cancellation, attributing it to circumstances outside its management and operations. The company said refunds will begin automatically on Monday, Oct. 19, and that the time it takes for the money to reach each buyer will depend on their bank or card issuer. Tickets had been priced from $60 to $300 when sales were announced in July.
Beéle, whose real name is Brandon de Jesús López Orozco, said in a social media post after the cancellation that the matter would not end there and that he would look for an opportunity to return to Costa Rica. The singer played his first solo concert in the country at Parque Viva in September 2025. No new date has been announced.
