She called herself “La Sicaria”, and advertised on social media that she would “kill anyone for c50,000”, or $78.00. This week she was convicted of seducing a man and luring him to his death in San Juan de Dios, Desamparados. Her real name is Carolina del Carmen Requene, a 26-year old single mother of three, originally from Nicaragua, but residing in Costa Rica for most of her adult life. The ter...

Six people were murdered on October 17th on the private property of American Stephen Paul Sandusky of Buenos Aires, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The police arrived at 1AM on October 18th, and have consistently told the press that they are investigating this slaughter as a robbery gone wrong. Was it? Neighbors aren’t so sure. Sandusky was a 61-year old former Floridian, divorced father of two sons. H...

North Americans come from squirrel country -- Canada and USA both have all kinds of squirrels, living in trees and parks everywhere. But Costa Rican squirrels are different. Variegated Squirrels (Sciurus variegatoides) are tree squirrels and are found in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Southern Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama. There are some 15 different species of this squirrel, with a...

The body of American Stephen Paul Sandusky (61) was found on Monday, on his farm Llano Bonito de Buenos Aires, in Puntarenas. His head was missing, his torso and lower body were burned beyond recognition, his arms were still whole. Five Costa Rican citizens were also found dead on the property, three had been shot in the head, all had gunshot wounds, and all but one was burned. The fifth had been ...

On Sunday morning, a jolly group of five people from San Isidro de El General (Perez Zeledon), set off to help a gringo friend of theirs in nearby Buenos Aires de Puntarenas. There were apparently several pieces of farm machinery in need of repair, and 44-year old Quesada Cascante was just the mechanic for the job. With him was his wife, their son, and another couple along to help with the repairs...

According to the Missing Americans Project, a nonprofit organization helping to track Americans and other nationals who vanish in Costa Rica and elsewhere, disappearances of foreigners are under-reported and not closely monitored by any organization. “Families of people who go missing outside their country’s borders frequently find themselves alone and struggling”, according to the organization’s ...

When your lover’s old boyfriend shows up unannounced at your front door, it often means big trouble. This was the case for 57-year old American David Baldino Dominic, who died in a hail of bullets on May 14th, in front of his home in Herradura, Puntarenas. The accused killer is a Nicaraguan by the name of Acuna Centero who came looking for his ex at Dominic’s house early Friday morning. The uniden...

BOLO (Be on the Look Out) for the highly destructive Giant African Land Snail, announced the Servicio Fitosanorio del Estado, (SFE) in a press release.  They warned of a new plague of giant snails discovered in Liberia, Guanacaste, that are aggressive, long-lived, crop-destroying, and spread human disease among people who come into contact with them. It is suspected that they arrived as stowaways ...

Image Courtesy of Diario Extra The Costa Rican Red Cross found the body of Nicholas Ray (27), off the Jaco Beach shore, Costa Rica. Ray was reported disappeared last Tuesday, believed to have been swept out to sea by a rip current while he was swimming with friends. His sister Nicole Ray Goldsby, had arrived from the US to help with the search, when the body was discovered. Red Cross and friend...

In the first three months of 2021, Costa Rican authorities have seized 19 tons of illegal drugs which is excellent, but what happens to those drugs? The Minister of Security Michael Soto and individuals involved in drug trafficking seem to disagree on the fate of confiscated drugs in Costa Rica. Soto claims that under Costa Rican law, the storage and destruction of all seized drugs – regardless...

Costa Rica is famous for its beautiful women. Finally, a Tica will grace the cover of the April issue of the US men’s magazine Maxim, and later become the first Costa Rican to appear in Playboy Magazine. Her name is Lucy Hislop, and she is originally from Guanacaste. Ms. Hilsop is a model and entrepreneur, currently living in Miami. She was selected in a virtual competition, where she competed wi...

The owner of the luxury hotel La Mansion Inn of Manuel Antonio, Harry Bodaan, has received a six-month extension of his house arrest, accused of the murder of anesthesiologist Dra. Maria Luisa Cedeno Quesada at his hotel in July. The doctor’s family has commented, “This is a very painful crime, terribly atrocious and terribly violent. What the family wants is justice – that is swift and final.” ...

Costa Rican scientists are aggressively developing a rapid molecular saliva-based test for COVID-19 that will yield results in only one hour, and will cost $15-20. No elaborate equipment will be required to amplify the generic material, making the test much simpler to process. The first prototype has been created and scientists are calling the RT-LAMP test “tiCOVID-19”, after the affectionate name...

Tour guides Gerald Pereira and Oscar Solano Rojas were conducting the “Sloth Tour” for the Sloth Conservation Foundation early on the morning of December 20th last year, when they saw something that stopped them dead in their tracks. Tucked into the leaves of a Cecropia (Guarumo in Spanish) tree was a mama sloth tending to a baby sloth, but the two sloths were from totally different species. Mama ...

Organized crime in Costa Rica and throughout Latin America has discovered a way to take advantage of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, while keeping their profits high and their traffickers gainfully employed. INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) has discovered substandard facemasks, counterfeit hand sanitizers, and most recently, bogus COVID-19 injections that traffickers refer ...

Costa Rica, like many Latin American countries, is experiencing tough economic times as the year 2020 comes to an end. Unemployment is at 25% (Our last report here was 24.4%), and many businesses have been forced to close down, of which most never to reopen. COVID-19 hit the country hard beginning in March, and lots of individuals were caught unprepared. Many people had already taken out loans fro...

Costa Rica has its own style of corridas de toros (bullfights), a style shared by no other country on earth. The bulls in “toros a la tica” don’t die in the ring. They fight hard, entertain the crowds, and live to fight another year. But the humans involved in these bullfights tend to get injured – sometimes gravely – so Costa Rica’s Ministry of Health decided this year to forego the tradition and...

Bats are having their 15-minutes of fame this year because they are rumored to be the source of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Costa Rica is doing its part to add to the knowledge of this small mammal – a new one was recently discovered in Northwest Costa Rica, the Saccopteryx bilineata bat, native to the Talamanca Mountain Range. Bats themselves never suffer from viruses. One of the amazing charac...

The paper money banknote that circulates the most in Costa Rica is the “rojo”, the red 1,000c note worth almost $2.00. Two years ago Costa Rica began making the rojo out of plastic substrate, in order to prolong its life and make it recyclable. In 2021, all Tico folding money will be made out of plastic, except the 50,000c note, which is being phased out of circulation. The rojo has won internatio...

Even narco-traffickers are getting into the Christmas spirit this year. The Costa Rican Minister of Public Security reported that last weekend the Costa Rican Coast Guard along with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), halted an Ecuadorian boat and its Costa Rican sister vessel containing 422 packets of cocaine – all prettily wrapped and decorated with Christmas gift wrap, featuring be...

On January 8, 2010, the Red Cross received an emergency call for a dead American in Florida de Baru. The ambulance driver who was first on the scene described walking into John Bender’s bedroom and seeing “a blanket of jewels”, both cut and uncut, strewn about the bedroom and stuffed loosely into backpacks – over 3,000 jewels in total. What has happened to them all? When the police arrived at t...

In the year 2018, more than 400 Costa Rican women were forced to flee their homes due to abuse from their significant other. This year the challenges are greater due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation is being called the “Shadow Pandemic’’, a pandemic that accompanies the coronavirus and keeps abused women living with their abusers. November 25 has been dubbed by the United Nations as Intern...

Costa Rican native Carlos Soto went off to college at age 18 to attend California’s Loyola Marymount University. Now he’s the CEO of his own company, and it’s all because he acquired a taste for tequila while hanging out with his college friends. Soto is the founder of Nosotros Tequila, a company that has just begun to hit its stride in the adult beverage world – undoubtedly NOT what his parents h...

Famed bat biologist Dr. Bernal Rodriguez Herrera of University of Costa Rica, published a paper last week describing the bizarre mating ritual of what he called the “Masked Seducer” of the bat world, the Centurio Senex. The Latin name means “the hundred year old man”, referring to the odd, scrunched up, wrinkled face of this bat whose sex drive is apparently anything but geriatric. Up until 2018,...

Getting through Immigration can be stressful. Former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Paulina Porizkova found getting through Immigration at Juan Santamaria Airport last week completely overwhelming. Her meltdown was so intense, that she was put in a wheelchair and taken right back to the airplane that brought her. Porizkova’s challenge was that she attempted to enter Costa Rica with an expired p...

The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) announced Tuesday the capture and detention of three suspects in the case of missing American/Costa Rican, Christian Tijerino Lopez. Tijerino disappeared on February 18 in Bagaces, Guanacaste, while on his way to the beach to surf for the day. His Ford Explorer was found abandoned in front of the Bagaces School, where he had apparently run out of gasol...

Lic. Mario Cerdac Salazar has been detained six times for operating a marijuana grow house on his terrace – within sight of the Alajuela Courthouse. He has never been to prison. He will now attend a hearing on November 4 th ,   according to the Supreme Court of Justice’s weekly bulletin. Cerdas has long been a self-proclaimed advocate of recreational marijuana use, something many expats also enjoy...

As of November 1st, residents of all American states will be permitted to enter Costa Rica if they have the appropriate paperwork and proof of a negative COVID-19 test; Canadians are already welcome with correct paperwork. The United States Embassy posted on Monday that those wanting to visit Costa Rica should reconsider given the strikes and traffic blockades, as well as the increase in COVID cas...

What began as a routine investigation of suspicious activity in a condominium in Escazu on Wednesday, culminated in the seizure by the Fuerza Publica of almost two tons of cocaine, $1.5 million dollars, and c235 million colones. The condo is located in the Trejos Montealegre area of San Rafael de Escazu. Three people were detained in connection with the drug bust: two Colombian males, and a Costa ...

On May 23, 2018, Italian fruit exporter Salvatore Ponzo was found dead in a pool of blood, in front of the Italian Embassy in San Jose. Two gunmen had pulled up on a blue dirt bike as Ponzo and his girlfriend were exiting. Ponzo was felled by six bullets, his girlfriend was seriously wounded. This January, Italian courts shed light on who Ponzo really was: a cocaine smuggler who had stolen a shipm...

The family and friends of Albert Lusk are offering a reward of ONE MILLION COLONES (Around $1700 USD) to the person(s) who can help locate this missing American. Albert never returned from his usual hike on the morning of September 21, in the area known as Cerro Turu, near the Parque Nacional Braulio Carillo. His car was found on Calle Brena Mora. His usual hike was up to a waterfall on the Rio...

Thirty people fanned out on Friday October the 2nd searching for 67-year old Albert Lusk, who disappeared twelve days ago. The group included members of the Red Cross, firemen, members of the Fuerza Publica, and the Organismo de investigacion Judicial (OIJ). Sniffer dogs were brought in capable of finding both survivors, and forensic remains of those who have perished. Searchers combed the mountai...

On February 15, 2020, Costa Rica stopped a shipment of over five tons of cocaine – the biggest drug bust in Costa Rican history – headed for the Netherlands. This drug interdiction was a triumph, but shined a bright light on the Costa Rican cocaine trafficking problem. “In Costa Rica, we are facing a tsunami of cocaine, and it’s drowning us”, stated former chief of Costa Rica’s national anti-drug ...

In recent weeks, Costa Rica’s iconic Imperial Beer’s eagle (‘aguila’ in Spanish), has been turned on its head. It’s been seen upside down on signs, trucks, bottles, billboards and other promotional material. What gives? Imperial’s press office explained, “The country is passing through very difficult moments that have us all feeling like we are upside down on our heads, but together we will mov...

The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) is asking for the public’s help in finding an American citizen named Albert George Lusk (67), who disappeared on September 21 in San Isidro de Heredia Province, leaving his car on a remote road as he often did before hiking to his favorite waterfall. Sadly, on that day, Lusk seems to have never returned from his walk. Mel Rivera, a resident on that ...

On the weekend of September 20th, photos of the Spanish couple Pedro and Silvia Sierra went viral. They depicted the couple in Costa Rica, Pedro in camouflage jungle gear, and Silvia in a bra and pants. They appeared to be deep in the jungle in the photos, and seemed to be hunting domestic cats. There were photos of cats impaled on trees, being eaten by snakes, hanging upside down from Pedro’s han...

At a press conference on September 21 at the Casa Presidencial in San Jose, it was announced that Costa Rica is having talks with 6 pharmaceutical companies currently working on a new COVID-19 vaccine. Those companies include Pfizer, Sinovac, Sinopharm, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and the Russian Sputnik V. Costa Rica is working to obtain enough vaccine doses for the entire country, while ensuring that ...

Muffadal Saylawa, Founder and CEO of Oro Chocolate, was en route to Chocoa, Europe’s largest sustainable chocolate convention, when disaster struck. He was traveling well-prepared, having bought plane tickets to Amsterdam, booked an airb&b, rented a booth at the convention, and recruited his sister to help with sales – Muffadal was filled with hope for taking his gourmet chocolate company to t...

The autopsy report of the brutal murder of CIMA Hospital doctor of anesthesiology, Dra. Maria Luisa Cedeno, was released today (Tuesday Aug 8th 2020), revealing the violent attack she received prior to being killed by one or more person on July 20th. The cause of death is listed as a fatal blow to the back of the neck, but she suffered blows and stab wounds – even bites – to her body prior to her ...

Late last month Costa Rican authorities completed 32 raids, arresting 27 people involved in illegal mining and an affiliated gold-laundering ring. The investigation began in April 2019, after authorities at San Jose’s Juan Santamaria International Airport noticed an unprecedented increase in the amount of gold listed in export documents filed. The investigation was thorough and intense, uncover...