Q COSTA RICA — Drug trafficking groups in Costa Rica provide logistical services to major Mexican and Colombian cartels without any apparent loyalty, explained Michael Soto, interim director of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ).
Soto explained that these individuals do not necessarily belong directly or hierarchically to any cartels, but rather operate by offering transportation, security, and fuel to move the drugs.
“What they do is sell an outsourcing service; it doesn’t matter if it’s to Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation, or one of the clans in Colombia, like the Gulf Clan. That’s secondary. What matters to them is who can sell them the service to guarantee that the shipment leaving South America reaches North America or Europe,” Soto explained.
The lack of affiliation or “exclusive loyalty” works in two directions: neither do Costa Rican gangs “marry” themselves to a specific international group, nor do these cartels have members in the country who work exclusively for them.
International Fragmentation
These changes, which lead local organizations to offer outsourcing services to the highest bidder, also reflect an internal dynamic within international cartels.
In Colombia, the large, hierarchical, and centralized power structures have ceased to exist and have transformed into clans—smaller, less visible groups. Having a group or brand with such transnational exposure makes them a target not only for authorities in their country of origin but also for those in other countries.
The downfall of major Latin American drug lords, such as Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and Nemesio Oseguera “El Mencho,” has also contributed to this fragmentation in Mexico, the other pole of drug trafficking in the region.
For example, the Sinaloa Cartel split into Los Chapitos, led by “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons, Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo; La Mayiza, loyal to Zambada and his son, “El Mayito Flaco,” along with Los Dámaso and the faction of “El Lic.”
This significant fragmentation doesn’t mean that organized crime or drug trafficking will stop. On the contrary, smaller groups are emerging, taking over routes and seeking to remain more inconspicuous.
The same is happening with European mafias, such as the Albanian one, which has gained considerable strength in this hemisphere, as well as the ‘Ndrangheta, considered the most powerful and wealthiest criminal organization in Italy, which has already extended its reach into Costa Rica.
When a leader falls, like the recently extradited Costa Ricans (Celso Gambos, Edwin Lopez, known as “Pecho de Rata”, and Gilbert Bell Fernández, known as “Macho Coca”), who covered part of that route, they immediately look for another to guarantee that coverage.
This fragmentation means that, internationally, the names of such large cartels are no longer heard, as they will be replaced by smaller ones—a phenomenon that could also occur within Costa Rica.
“When you have contact with our colleagues in Mexico or the United States, they talk about factions, not so much about clans anymore. I think that’s somewhat what we’ve been seeing in Costa Rica. Now they’re smaller groups carrying out specific functions and being less visible to the criminal structures.
“In fact, the homicides make them so conspicuous that they try to avoid these conflicts so that all those deaths don’t generate so much information for the police,” explained the director of the OIJ.
How the Outsourcing Model Works
- Local networks, often comprised of local fishermen, meet Colombian semi-submersibles or speedboats along the Pacific coast to offload drug shipments.
- Costa Rican operators provide critical maritime services, such as delivering fuel and provisions to smuggling vessels offshore.
- Local transport syndicates move the contraband overland from remote Pacific landing zones to the Central Valley or the Caribbean coast.
- Subcontracted groups construct and guard hidden airstrips, warehouses, and safe houses in areas like Guanacaste.
- Local operators disguise drugs within legitimate agricultural exports10—primarily bananas and pineapples—shipped out of major hubs like the Moín Port in Limón.