SAN JOSE – Crimes related to cattle theft are becoming more frequent in Costa Rica, according to official reports issued by agricultural and law enforcement agencies. The most common crimes involve brazen cattle thieves who operate under cover of darkness in rural Costa Rica, although other crimes such as fraud in the cattle trade and even field mutilations have been reported by ranchers. Rustling and field butchering also pose a great risk to public health due to the uncertain provenance of contraband beef sold in the black market.

Advances in science and technology can help officials in Costa Rica speed up the investigative and forensic processes in the fight against rustlers and their villainous trade. DNA analysis is one of the tools now available to law enforcement officers that will help them to identify lost, stolen and illegally slaughtered cattle.

In 2011, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MICIT in Spanish) established a special fund for DNA forensic studies of cattle in Costa Rica. The Animal Health and Welfare Administration (SENASA) and the Office of Judicial Investigations (OIJ) were selected as the entities that will receive 28 million colones (about $56,000) to conduct the DNA studies. The symbolic award of the funds took place yesterday at the MICIT headquarters.

The Costa Rica Star has previously reported on the efforts by Fuerza Publica officers assigned to the Northern Zone in Upala. Working in conjunction with OIJ back in May, they were able to recover four cows found in a farm that served as a hideaway for rustlers. Officers cited the support from the border security police and members of the community as they conducted door-to-door (or barn-to-barn) interviews to find the gang of cattle thieves in El Progreso de Upala.

Dairy farms in Cartago have also been victims of rustlers, where cattle ranchers have found the slaughtered remains of their prized animals strewn across the fields. Such was the case with Don Vernon Montero Lopez, a dairy farmer from Buenos Aires de Pacayas, who back in May set off looking for some of his missing Holstein cows. He found them crudely slaughtered a few hundred meters away.