robbery

Ólger Ulate Ulate, 55, a Tico who traveled to Brazil to attend the FIFA World Cup, was arrested Wednesday by Brazilian police in the city of Natal for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old transvestite sex worker, several local media reported.

As if they don't have enough money problems already, striking school teachers are being targeted by pickpockets who take advantage of the large crowds during recent public demonstrations.

On Saturday night, assailants robbed three U.S. tourists in Costa Rica's capital San José in an attack that ended with one of the victims rushed to Calerdón Guardia Hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The isthmus connecting North and South America continues to lead the world in murder rates, with four of the top five rates in the world in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize.

Despite having only 9 percent of the world’s population, Latin America and the Caribbean register more than 30 percent of the world’s homicides, according to a security expert at the World Bank. INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: Explore homicide statistics and their relationship to economic growth across Latin America.

The central cantons of Limón and San José top the country’s cantonal crime index, according to the latest report released this week by the Peace Vice Ministry – part of Costa Rica's Justice Ministry – and the Institute for Municipal Development. But the data, a summary of which was released on Tuesday and didn't include some serious crimes like rape and kidnapping, is three years old.