Costa Rican authorities located 2.4 tons of cocaine in a container that arrived from Colombia and located in a container transport facility in Liverpool, Limón, in the Caribbean of the country.

The investigators of the Drug Control Police carefully checked the container in a routine inspection and found a total of 2,420 packages containing what apparently was cocaine. Each package weighed approximately 1 kg.

The container was loaded with machine parts, vinegars and refrigerators, and it arrived aboard a vessel that originated from Turbo in Colombia, the complete route of the vessel included: Setubal, Portugal – Vado Ligure, Italy – Terragona, Spain – Haia, Dominican Republic – Turbo, Colombia and Limón, Costa Rica, informed the Ministry of Public Security.

So far this year authorities have seized over 15 tons of cocaine inside containers. During the previous year, authorities seized only a little over 4 tons of this drug inside containers in the country.

Just a few days back, in October 12th, almost 3 tons of cocaine were found hidden inside a container loaded with bananas in the APM Terminal dock in Limon, the container had Amberes, Belgium as the final destination.

Since March 2019, APM Terminals in Limón announced they would have the most modern container scanner in Latin America which would help verify all the cargos traveling to the United States and Europe as a tool to battle illegal traffic of weapons, drugs, cash, radioactive materials, etc.

But…..In order to put the scanner to work the Government of Costa Rica has to invest in a monitoring center where images will get analyzed. This has not happened, and moreover, there is confusion in the government with regards to which institution is responsible for the execution of this project. In the meantime, authorities have limited resources to discover shipments of drugs hidden in containers that come and go.