The first Costa Rican woman ordered extradited to the United States will not be handed over for now. Defense attorneys for Shirley Gómez, known as “La Güera,” and her partner, Frankin Viveros, have appealed a San José Criminal Court ruling that authorized their surrender to U.S. authorities. The appeal suspends the transfer while a higher court reviews the case.
The court approved the extradition of both on September 14. They are wanted by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on charges of international cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to distribute cocaine knowing it would be imported into the United States. The defense filed its challenge within the three-day deadline set for appeals.
Neither has been convicted, and the U.S. allegations have not been tested at trial. Gómez, 39, is the only Costa Rican woman to face an extradition proceeding since the country began allowing the surrender of its own citizens in 2025. Viveros, 50, was born in Colombia and later became a naturalized Costa Rican citizen.
The appeal centers on retroactivity. The defense argued that applying the reform to Article 32 of the Constitution would be a retroactive use of the law, because the conduct attributed to the couple began in July 2024. That was nearly a year before the amendment took effect on May 28, 2025.
The judge rejected that argument. The ruling held that international drug trafficking is a continuing offense. It also found that the U.S. filings describe alleged activity lasting until October 1, 2025, well after the reform came into force, so the new extradition framework applies.
The defense also challenged the role of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It argued that DEA agents made undercover drug purchases in Costa Rica without a formal international cooperation agreement approved by the Foreign Ministry. The judge ruled that the validity of that evidence is for the courts in Arizona to decide at trial, not for an extradition proceeding.
The retroactivity question has already produced split outcomes. In February, the Criminal Sentencing Appeals Court in San José upheld the extradition of former security minister and magistrate Celso Gamboa Sánchez and of Edwin López Vega, known as “Pecho de Rata,” because their alleged conduct extended past May 28, 2025.
In the same ruling, the appeals court blocked the extradition of a third suspect, Jonathan Álvarez Alfaro, after finding that all the acts attributed to him took place before the reform. Gamboa and López Vega were flown to Texas on March 20, becoming the first Costa Rican nationals extradited in our history.
So far, cases where the alleged conduct runs past the May 2025 cutoff have held up on review, and cases where it ends before that date have not. The Gómez and Viveros appeal will test how the courts treat an investigation that began in mid-2024 and continued into late 2025.
According to the U.S. indictment cited in the extradition ruling, Gómez and Viveros acted as local leaders of a trafficking network with links to Colombia, Panama and Mexico. U.S. prosecutors allege that the couple received cocaine flights from Colombia about every two weeks and ran safe houses used by the organization.
The indictment links the network to the seizure of 273 kilograms (602 pounds) of cocaine hidden in two vehicles in August 2024. U.S. prosecutors identify Óscar Enrique Virula Arredondo, a Guatemalan national based in Panama, as an alleged organizer of shipments by speedboat and aircraft. Six alleged leaders of the network were indicted on October 1, 2025.
U.S. filings state that DEA informants recorded negotiations on video and made controlled drug purchases in San José and in Cali, Colombia. None of these allegations has been proven in court. Costa Rican authorities arrested Gómez and Viveros on March 13, 2026, in an operation coordinated with the DEA. Viveros is held in the maximum-security unit at La Reforma prison. Gómez is held at the Vilma Curling Rivera women’s prison.
If the appeal fails, the handover would still not be immediate. In the Gamboa case, the appeals court made the transfer conditional on formal U.S. assurances that neither man would face life imprisonment or a sentence longer than 50 years, the maximum allowed under Costa Rican law. No date has been announced for a ruling on the new appeal.
The decision will help define how far Costa Rica’s 2025 extradition reform reaches, especially in long-running trafficking investigations that began before citizens could be surrendered abroad. Other extradition cases involving Costa Rican citizens are still before the courts.
