A Costa Rican man with the last names Alvarado Leiva, an official at the Costa Rican National Registry (Registro Nacional), was arrested this morning on suspicion of hacking into a woman’s WhatsApp account, monitoring her private communications, and sending her death threats, said the Costa Rican Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ).

It appears that Alvarado Leiva is obsessed with the woman, who reported the threatening behavior out of fear for her life, said police. His obsession apparently led him to hack into her WhatsApp account to monitor the people with whom she had contact.

Alvarado Leiva seems to have then proceeded to threaten her as well as some of her contacts.

 

The man was charged with three crimes – death threats, coercion and violation of private communications – at the time of his arrest by OIJ Miscellaneous Crimes section agents.

In addition, the man appears to have tried to extort money from the victim’s family members by threatening to reveal sensitive, personal information unless they paid him, said police.

Alvarado Leiva was arrested at about 9 a.m. this morning at his office, and was then taken to his home in Curridabat, an eastern San José suburb, where officers searched his house carefully for information related to the case. Officers also searched the house of Alvarado Leiva’s relatives in Liberia, Guanacaste in northern Costa Rica, said police in a statement.