Prosecutors and agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) are searching for two expats who may have been involved in the death of a medical tourist in Guanacaste. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Bente Soldberg was a 42-year old woman from Norway who passed away at a facility that offered drug rehabilitation services.

A man from North American and another one from Africa are now sought by OIJ agents assigned to Liberia. They have been identified as Michael Charles Cassidy from Canada and Patrick Zamba Makala from Gabon. According to a news report aired on the national television network Teletica Channel 7, the two suspects were administrators of the center where the Norwegian medical tourist passed away after a toxic dose of ibogaine, a substance extracted from a few plants (mostly Tabernanthe iboga) that are native to Western Africa.

Ibogaine is extracted from these flowering shrubs, and the result is a substance with psychoactive and psychedelic properties. Research on the therapeutic potential of Ibogaine indicates that the substance can be used to help heroin and opiate addicts to overcome their patterns of abuse. The medically supervised use of ibogaine is very safe, as tests are performed to determine complications beforehand and doctors and nurses are present during crucial phases. For more information, see http://ibeginagain.org.

The treatment center where Ms. Soldberg passed away did not continue to operate after the incident. The Iboga House Center was located in Cañas Dulces, a town not far from the city of Liberia in the province of Guanacaste. Ms. Soldberg was not the only medical tourist to die at the Iboga House Center; a report by David Delgado of national newspaper La Nacion also mentioned a case in early 2013; however, a toxicology report was not conclusive insofar as detecting the presence of ibogaine in that earlier death.

Although the use of ibogaine is not illegal in Costa Rica, health officials are very concerned about the recent deaths and the notoriety of treatment centers in our country. It so happens that the operations of the former Iboga House Center have been absorbed into the posh Rythmia Life Advancement Center of Guanacaste, where reality television star Scott Disick of the popular series Keeping Up with the Kardashians was reported to have been recently admitted. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Mr. Disick has three children with Kourtney Kardashian and was battling alcoholism when he checked in to Rythmia.