A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that reached a jungle cocaine lab in Colombia and a fishing boat anchored off Peru lies behind the case of Shirley Yesenia Gómez Parra, the first Costa Rican woman approved for extradition to the United States on drug charges.
Gómez Parra, 39, and her partner, Viveros Viveros, 50, a Colombian-born naturalized Costa Rican, are among six people named in a single indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Arizona on Oct. 1, 2025, according to the federal court docket in United States v. Arredondo et al. The indictment carries one count and a forfeiture allegation.
Investigators allege the pair acted as local leaders of a network that moved cocaine from Colombia through Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico to the U.S. market. Neither has been convicted, and the allegations have not been tested at trial. According to case records reported in Costa Rica, a confidential DEA informant met in Bogotá on July 31, 2024, with Edgar Santiago Barbosa Andrade, who investigators say acted as an emissary for Colombian supplier Jorge Sánchez Gamboa. The meeting was recorded.
On Oct. 3, 2024, the informant met Francisco Mantilla Angulo, known as “Frank,” and a second man known as “Primo” in Cali, investigators allege. The informant was then taken about an hour and a half to a jungle complex that could hold up to 2 metric tons (about 4,400 pounds) of cocaine and was watched by roughly six lookouts.
During that visit, according to the allegations, the suppliers set a price of 5.8 million Colombian pesos per kilogram, or about $1,350. On Oct. 18, 2024, an emissary handed over 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) of cocaine for $10,000 in cash at a shopping center in Cali. DEA laboratory tests later confirmed it was high-purity cocaine hydrochloride.
In December 2024, investigators allege, the group’s leaders offered a fishing vessel anchored in Peru to move drugs across the Pacific. The DEA also recorded Gómez Parra on video negotiating a 100-kilogram (220-pound) cocaine shipment to Arizona, investigators allege. U.S. authorities further link the network to biweekly flights from Colombia, a set of safe houses and the seizure of 273 kilograms (602 pounds) of cocaine from two vehicles in August 2024.
Colombian investigators, working with the it’s navy and a military anti-kidnapping unit, located Sánchez Gamboa, Barbosa Andrade and Mantilla Angulo in Bogotá, Cali and Buenaventura and served them with the U.S. request, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office said in March.
In Panama, authorities detained Oscar Enrique Virula Arredondo, a Guatemalan national who prosecutors allege offered safe houses and transport routes in Costa Rica. He is listed as the first defendant in the Arizona case. Gómez Parra was detained in Ciudad Neily and Viveros Viveros in La Sabana, both on March 13, 2026. She is held at the Vilma Curling Rivera women’s prison, and he is in the maximum-security module at La Reforma.
The San José Criminal Court approved the extradition of both on Sept. 14. Their defense appealed within three days, arguing that the alleged acts date to July 2024, before the constitutional reform that allowed Costa Rica to extradite its own citizens took effect. The defense also argued that DEA agents made covert purchases without a formal cooperation agreement endorsed by Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry.
The trial judge rejected the retroactivity argument, finding that drug trafficking is a continuing offense and that the alleged conduct ran until Oct. 1, 2025. The judge also ruled that the validity of the DEA’s evidence is a matter for the courts in Arizona, not for an extradition hearing.
The appeal is pending, and neither defendant can be handed over until it is resolved. The case adds to a widening set of U.S. drug investigations that run through Costa Rica. If the appeal fails, Gómez Parra and Viveros Viveros would follow former Public Security Minister Celso Gamboa, who was extradited to Texas in March, among the Costa Ricans sent to face trial in U.S. courts since the reform.
