Four Europeans, 3 native from the Netherlands and 1 from Belgium were detained Friday by Costa Rican authorities as suspects of extracting endemic miniature orchids from the Juan Castro Blanco National Park, located in the province of Alajuela between the counties of San Carlos, Zarcero and Rio Cuarto.

In total 246 plans were extracted by the foreigners with the purpose of taking them to Europe where they are sold as exotic species for as much as $800-$1000 each.

According to the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) and the National System of Areas of Conservation (SINAC), on Thursday, March 22 they received the report of park rangers regarding the extraction of some orchids, after investigating they found a European hiding 46 orchids, however, after informing him that this was an illegal action they set him free.

On Friday, the foreigners were found in the area again, after receiving the alert, authorities found the foreigners leaving the park aboard a taxi cab and heading to the Juan Santamaria Airport. Upon checking their luggage they found over 200 miniature orchids of different species hidden in shampoo bottles and a hiking stick.

Although the foreigners were detained they had to be set free since Law 7317 (Of Wildlife Conservation) only establishes a fine for this type of illegal acts. The group had several entries to Costa Rica recorded in the past, so there is a chance that they’d done this before.

“In the black market, these exotic plants have great value. In many cases they are reproduced through in vitro practices”, stated the OIJ report.