smugglers

The United States included Nicaragua on its human trafficking blacklist; Costa Rica remained stable.

Police began the trafficking investigation following the disappearance last year of three Ticos who allegedly paid Barboza to take them to Miami via Panama and Barbados.

Judicial and immigration officials in Costa Rica on Tuesday arrested two men suspected of forming part of a criminal group responsible for smuggling migrants across the Americas on their way to the U.S.

The Tico Times accompanied a Border Police squad on a patrol along the country's southern border to see how migrants continue to reach Costa Rica.

National Police officers detained a truck near the Central Pacific town of Jacó early Wednesday carrying 51 undocumented migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The 12,428 tablets, pills, vials and other items the 39-year-old suspect carried included amoxicillin, tetracycline, and diclofenac, among others.

A Costa Rican woman on Friday was sentenced in a Florida court to 30 months in prison for her role in a conspiracy to smuggle more than 25 undocumented Cuban migrants to that country, the U.S. Department of Justice reported.

Costa Rican National Police officers conducting a routine patrol at 3 a.m. on Monday detained a group of 23 undocumented migrants – 19 of them from Nepal – while attempting to enter the country from Panama.

Cops seized 597 cases of booze, including rum, whiskey, tequila and beer, worth an estimated ₡20 million ($38,000).

Flying migrants back to Asia or Africa cost the Costa Rican government $259,490 in 2013, according to Gladys Jiménez, acting director of the Immigration Administration.