Caribbean & Central America - August 2025

The arrest in June of Costa Rica’s former security minister (2014-2015) and supreme court (CSJ) justice (2016-2018), Celso Gamboa, who in July was then charged with drug-related crimes in the US, has exposed a major drug scandal which could implicate members of President Rodrigo Chaves’ government. With security a major public concern as Costa Rica is facing record homicides, attributed to the growing presence of international drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) in the country [SSR-25-06], the scandal comes as Chaves himself is facing the threat of impeachment over an unrelated corruption case. This is all taking place as Costa Rica is gearing up for general elections in February 2026, in which Chaves is constitutionally barred from seeking a further presidential term, although he is reportedly mulling a bid for the legislature.

A security minister under former president Luis Guillermo Solís (Partido Acción Ciudadana, PAC, 2014-2018), Gamboa was detained in Costa Rica on 23 June along with his purported associate Edwin López Vega, an alleged international drug trafficker. At the time of his arrest, the head of Costa Rica’s judicial investigations unit Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ), Randall Zúñiga, described Gamboa as being as among the top four narcos in the country.

On 11 July the US Department of Justice announced that Gamboa had been charged with conspiring with and assisting other international drug traffickers to “manufacture, distribute, and transport significant quantities of cocaine, much of which was trafficked through Costa Rica and ultimately into the United States for further distribution”. At the time of writing, both Gamboa and López were awaiting extradition to the US, as per new legislation approved in May which changes the country’s constitution to allow for the extradition of Costa Rican nationals in cases of drug trafficking and terrorism [SSR-06-25].

According to excerpts from US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) documents obtained by CR Hoy, a local media outlet, and published on 15 July, the allegations date back to around 2017 at which point Gamboa was serving as a justice. He was dismissed from the supreme court in 2018 over the ‘Cementazo’ corruption case, involving Sinocem Costa Rica, the Costa Rican subsidiary of a Chinese cement exporter, and top public officials [WR-17-41]. According to the same CR Hoy report, the DEA document highlights a meeting between Gamboa and two associates who were secretly DEA informants in the capital, San José, in September 2023 – during the current Chaves administration. Gamboa, who the DEA reportedly identifies as the apparent regional representative of Mexican DTO Cártel del Golfo (CDG), was allegedly recorded as saying that he could guarantee the reception of cocaine entering Costa Rica whether by the Atlantic or Pacific coasts with the Chaves administration’s consent.

Describing the allegations as “what may be the most significant drug scandal” in Costa Rica’s history, specialist website Insight Crime points out that prior to this, other high-level officials in Costa Rica had been linked to drug trafficking. These include former head (2007) of the national police force Fuerza Pública, José Fabio Pizarro Espinoza, who was handed a 10-year prison sentence in 2018 for concealing a lorry containing 237kg of cocaine, according to local press reports, although he was released in 2022. However, Insight Crime notes that Gamboa is the highest-ranking Costa Rican official to be arrested on such charges.

Chaves under pressure

With the possibility that further high-level officials may be implicated, the drug scandal comes as President Chaves, whose mandate which began in May 2022 has been characterised by clashes with the judiciary, the opposition-controlled 57-member unicameral legislature, and independent media [WR-24-25], is already feeling the heat over two investigations, one of which has already led the CSJ to request that the legislature strip him of his immunity from prosecution.

In what the national media reports is a first for the country, on 1 July the CSJ announced its decision after considering a request by the attorney general’s office. The case concerns a contract awarded for communication services for the presidency to RMC La Productora S.A, owned by Christian Bulgarelli, a specialist in audiovisual communication, to provide communication, marketing, and strategic consultancy services for the presidency from 2022-2026.

According to the attorney general’s request to the CSJ, ahead of the contract being awarded in 2022, Bulgarelli attended various meetings with Chaves and his culture minister Jorge Rodríguez Vives, then serving as Chaves’ chief of staff, in which Bulgarelli was instructed to draw up the contract’s terms himself, thereby ensuring RMC’s success. It adds that Chaves and Rodríguez also leant on Bulgarelli to divert US$32,000 in funds from the Central American development bank (BCIE) to a Chaves ally, Federico Cruz Saravanja, to buy a house. In June 2024, BCIE notably blacklisted Bulgarelli and RMC for seven years for having allegedly committed fraudulent activities.

At the time of writing, the legislature, in which Chaves’ Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD) has just eight seats, had yet to make a decision regarding the request by the CSJ which is also considering a further accusation from the attorney general’s office regarding Chaves in relation to another investigation: on 23 June the attorney general’s office formally accused Chaves, along with First Vice President Stephan Brunner, Foreign Minister Arnoldo André, and four PPSD deputies – Pilar Cisneros, Luz Mary Alpízar, Paola Nájera, and Waldo Agüero – of crimes related to illicit campaign finance during the 2022 electoral campaign. The charges are in line with an investigation that began in 2022 into whether the PPSD used two parallel funds to finance its campaign ahead of the 2022 general elections, which would be illegal [SSR-22-06].

• Illicit campaign finance

According to a statement by the attorney general’s office, the parallel financing structures identified were “a trust” – widely considered an allusion to a trust named Costa Rica Próspera, administered by ATA Trust Company SA, whose president at the time was Foreign Minister Arnoldo André – and the “personal bank accounts of a woman with the surname Agüero”. This has been widely understood as a reference to Sofía Agüero, a former administrative assistant, who has previously been accused of receiving funds from businessman Jack Loeb Casanova which were not processed via party channels. According to the same statement, both funding channels operated outside the oversight of the electoral authority and Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD)’s official treasury.

Cocaine seizures up

According to the most recent (7 May) round-up of cocaine seizures by specialist website Insight Crime, Costa Rica seized 27 tonnes (t) of cocaine in 2024, up from 21.4 t in 2003. Insight Crime notes that last year the government launched Operation Caribe, a strategy aimed at reducing crime in the province of Limón, a historically important drug trafficking hub on the Caribbean coast.

More visas revoked

On 9 July the president of Costa Rica’s congress, Rodrigo Arias (PLN), revealed that the US government led by President Donald Trump had revoked his tourist visa, saying that this occurred without explanation or prior warning.

Also targeted that day with similar measures were constitutional court judges Paul Rueda and Jorge Araya. This follows the revocation of visas in February of two deputies from the small opposition Partido Liberal Progresista (PLP), Johana Obando and Cynthia Córdoba, who according to local media had been very critical of the 2023 decision to bar Chinese technology multinational Huawei from bidding to supply 5G telecoms technology in public procurement auctions [SSR-25-03]. This followed a visit in February by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Costa Rica and other countries in Central America, where he highlighted the need to counter Chinese influence in the region as a priority for Washington.

Since then, others have faced similar measures including Vanessa Castro, congress vice president and a member of the opposition Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC), and Arias’ brother, former president Óscar Arias (1986-1990; 2006-2010), whose visas were revoked at the start of April. Óscar Arias also said that he had not been provided with any explanation. While cited by the media as saying it would be conjecture on his part to speculate about the reason, he did point out that “I established diplomatic relations with China” – a decision he took in 2007. The former president has also been critical of Trump, writing on social media in February that the US president behaved “like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do”.