Coast Guard vessels from both countries detained two fishing boats transporting drugs and another transporting fuel barrels, suspected of supplying smuggling boats.
The raids and arrests were the culmination of a Drug Control Police investigation into a group that allegedly trafficked drugs and cash across the Peñas Blancas border crossing with Nicaragua and on to Guatemala and Honduras.
In the last voting of Tuesday's full legislative session, lawmakers approved docking permission for 44 U.S. Coast Guard vessels that will conduct joint-patrol operations with Costa Rican authorities from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2015.
The U.S. Coast Guard captured a Costa Rican fishing vessel and arrested three Costa Ricans and one Nicaraguan suspect off the coast of the remote Cocos Island in the Pacific. The boat had 2.3 tons of cocaine on board. The bust went down on Monday with the assistance of local Drug Control Police.
Debates over whether or not U.S. Navy vessels should be allowed to patrol and dock in Costa Rica flared once again after Public Security Minister Celso Gamboa presented the Legislative Assembly with a list of U.S. ships that may participate in joint patrols.
Costa Rica's National Police arrested two U.S. citizens with the last names Little and Goges in Liberia, capital of the northwestern province of Guanacaste, over the weekend for alleged cocaine possession. Three Costa Ricans, including a 17-year-old girl, also were charged, according to the police report.
