Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) is warning of a steep rise in “virtual kidnapping” extortion, with complaints jumping more than sevenfold over the past year — a pattern that authorities say increasingly targets people who run businesses or advertise services.
Reports of the scam climbed from eight cases between January and May 2025 to 58 over the same months this year, a roughly 625% increase, the OIJ confirmed. Pablo Calvo, acting head of the agency’s Criminal Investigations Department, said most victims are people with a business or entrepreneurial venture — the profile criminals appear to be hunting.
In a virtual kidnapping, no one is actually abducted. The OIJ describes a relatively new scheme in which suspects contact a target under the pretext of hiring them for a job — construction, transport, sales or professional services — and arrange to meet in an isolated location. Once the person arrives, callers convince them they are being watched by snipers who will open fire if they hang up or try to leave. The victim is kept frozen on the line, sometimes for hours, while accomplices phone a relative in parallel and claim the person has been kidnapped, demanding an immediate ransom.
To keep victims from disconnecting, criminals recite personal details lifted from their social media accounts, deepening the sense that they are genuinely being surveilled. Costa Rican press reports put typical ransom demands at 15 million to 20 million colones — roughly $30,000 to nearly $40,000 — often routed through bank transfers, with investigators noting that many calls originate from South America and seek international transfers.
The OIJ says complaints are concentrated in Pérez Zeledón, San José and Alajuela, with Cartago also among the hardest-hit areas earlier in the year. March recorded the highest monthly count.
For Costa Rica’s foreign residents and newcomers, the victim profile is the part worth noting. Expats who post phone numbers and addresses to advertise tours, rentals, real estate, handyman work or other services — and those who share daily routines and locations publicly — fit the pattern criminals exploit to make a call sound credible. The same openness that helps a small operation find clients can hand a caller the exact details needed to sound convincing.
Authorities urge the public to limit the personal information they publish online and to treat unsolicited “job” offers that require traveling to a remote spot with caution. If a threatening call comes in, the OIJ advises staying calm, not following instructions to isolate yourself, and breaking off communication to independently verify the supposed victim’s safety by calling them directly or reaching another family member. Suspected cases can be reported to the OIJ or by dialing 911.
The warning is not the first this year. The OIJ flagged the same trend in early May, when it counted 41 cases through late April and laid out the seven-stage script behind the scheme, signaling a problem that has continued to grow rather than ease.
