Regulators in Costa Rica received 302 reports of suspicious financial transactions in 2012, according to the Money Laundering Unit of…
From 2010 to February 2013, security officials in Costa Rica seized 22 tons of cocaine and 377,000 doses of crack…
According to industry officials, there are around 300,000 private security guards working in the Central America region. The number of private guards in the region are higher than the number of police officers in the region.
The legitimate price of a pack of cigarettes in Costa Rica is $2.50 (1,300 Colons). The price of purchase a pack of cigarettes on the black market in Costa Rica is reported to be $0.98 (500 Colons).
Between 2000 and 2008,$4.47 Billion was illegally laundered each year through tax evasion, corruption and other types of crimes through Costa Rica. The amount laundered was equal to roughly one-fifth of the country’s GDP during that same time period.
Up to 10 percent of all cigarettes sold in Costa Rica are believed to have been smuggled into the country. In 2010, around 6 million black market cigarettes were seized.
There are over 250 Internet sports books companies registered in Costa Rica. The gambling sites employs 10,000 people and handles $12 Billion a year in sporting bets. The industry loosely regulated.
In 2002, 2,955 kilos of cocaine was seized in Costa Rica. In 2007, more than 32,000 kilos of cocaine was seized in Costa Rica.
Costa Rica’s Interior Ministry reported that nearly 93 tons of cocaine was seized in the country between 2006 and 2009, nearly twice the amount that was seized in the country in the previous decade. The increase in cocaine trafficking is believed to be caused from Mexican drug cartels increasingly picking up cocaine shipped from South America in Costa Rica.
The prostitution industry in Costa Rico has between 10,000 to 20,000 people working as prostitutes, according to available research. Between 25,000 to 50,000 people visit the country each year as sex tourists, with 80 percent of the sex tourists being American citizens.