Tag: loan sharking

(QCOSTARICA) On Tuesday, President Carlos Alvarado signed into law the usury law that sets a maximum interest rate of 39% loans in colones and 31.5% in dollars for loans of ¢675,000 colones and higher. For loans of less than ¢675,000, classified as microcredit, the rate...

Insightcrime.org - Extortion in Central America comes in many forms and targets different victims. The actors behind it also vary, as does the way in which these illicit earnings exchange hands. In the Northern Triangle nations of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, mass systematic schemes...

(Insightcrime.org) Costa Rica’s economic crisis and its strategic position along drug trafficking routes have created the perfect storm for a new type of extortion to take root: loan sharking. Referred to as “gota a gota” (drop by drop) in much of Latin America, loan sharking...

One brother dead, the other sentenced and now the accountant in police custody is the continuing story of the AKL crime organization that made the headlines with the ambush murder of Elías Akl on May 15, 2017. Later that same day, brother Ziad was detained...

Ziad Akl, the 45-year-old Canadian-Lebanese, who with his brother Elias formed one of the most vicious loan shark operations in the country, accepted the charges against him and agreed to an abbreviated process that could see the 23-year prison sentence confirmed by the Pavas...

The alleged leader of the Akl brothers criminal organization has been deported to Isreal, after being captured in downtown Escazu about two weeks ago. The immigration service confirmed the deportation of Lita Jake, an Israeli national, who entered Costa Rica in 2011 and applied for...