The former Minister of Public Works and Transportation, Luis Amador, announced his “self-imposed exile” and informed that he would go to live permanently in Canada. On Friday, March 15, at 6 a.m., he took a flight from Juan Santamaría Airport to said North American country.
The Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) seized the cell phone and other electronic devices of the former minister before he left the national territory. The seizure includes smartwatches and laptops.
The former public official is being investigated by the prosecutor’s office and the OIJ for an alleged corruption case, but has no precautionary measures against him, so he was able to leave Costa Rica.
A day before, the politician said in a video that he was leaving the country to avoid the tentacles of evil and promised to return to aspire to the presidency.
“I want to tell you that I am leaving very calmly, that I gave the best for the country, that I did what was humanly possible to try to improve the conditions in which you and I have to live (…) I want to tell you that with the same tranquility, we will return in the future. Today, in order to subsist, I am leaving the country in voluntary exile where the tentacles of evil will not reach me, I will return soon, and we will all be again unifying forces to be able to run in this 2026 campaign,” said Amador.
The prosecutor’s office confirmed that there is a case against Amador, which was initiated in January, for the alleged crime of ideological falsehood. The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves Robles; the Minister of the Presidency, Natalia Díaz Quintana; and the President of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Alejandro Picado Eduarte, for the same case.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating if the repair of the runway of the Daniel Oduber Airport in Liberia was irregularly awarded to MECO.
The ex-minister was dismissed by President Rodrigo Chaves for allegedly allowing handpicked contracting in favor of the company MECO to maintain the runway of the Daniel Oduber International Airport. The ruling would have cost Costa Ricans more than $2 million in overpricing in relation to two other bids, and according to the president, there are indications of corruption, but he cannot say that the former minister is corrupt.
The president of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Alejandro Picado, assured that everything was done “in accordance with the law” in his institution when contracting the construction company MECO to fix the runway of the Guanacaste airport.
