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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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Two murder suspects
bring total to four By José Pablo Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Four persons more have been detained as police wrap up their hunt for the persons who killed a Fuerza Pública officer at a police checkpoint near Cahuita on the Caribbean coast early July 9. Saturday police detained Antonio Mendoza Mendoza, 46, in Valle de la Estrella, just 7 kilometers (4.5 miles) from the murder scene. The man is a former Nicaraguan guerrilla fighter, police said. Sunday in Desamparados officers detained a 25-year-old man named Cristian Ampié Vargas. They join in jail two men, Diego Artavia Muñoz and Luis Herrera Mora, who were detained last week. Police also detained two women who face allegations that they provided help to the men after the murder. The victim, Mario González González, died when he tried to check out two vehicles that he stopped at the Tuba Creek checkpoint. The officer did not know that the men in the vehicles were fleeing an armed robbery. Officials said that Mendoza was identified during the shooting of González by another officer who was not harmed. $1.9 million for repairs in San Carlos, Guanacaste By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's emergency commission has approved 950 million colons, some $1.9 million, for repair work in San Carlos and in Guanacaste. Some 120 million colons ($233,000) go to build a bridge over the La Florida ditch in Ciudad Quesada. The emergency commission's board of directors also authorized spending 14 million colons ($27,000) to clean and channelize the Santa Rita in Florencia de San Carlos and 8 million colons ($15,500) to restore a bank of the Río San Rafael. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias took these actions after its president Daniel Gallardo took a tour of the area. The damage comes from heavy rains last year. Some 185 million colons ($359,000) will go to recondition the Belén-Huacas-Villarreal highway and 588 million colons ($1.14 million) will repair 21 kilometers (123 miles) of Highway 155 between Belén-Villarreal. Marijuana farm not what he expected By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A landlord who rented a remote farm in Barú in Pérez Zeledón paid a surprise call and encountered what he said were marijuana plants. A subsequent police visit led to the detention of the renter, an Australian identified as Alexandro Dimetropulos, 34. Police said they found 72 plants a meter and a half (nearly five feet) tall. The property was in an isolated sector, police said. The nearest home was a kilometer away, they said. The Australian, a tourist, had rented the home for seven months. Taxi protests reduce speed on main roads By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Taxi drivers protesting the legal status of drivers without permits caused congestion on the Intramerican highway Monday, and the protests are expected to continue all this week. The taxi drivers, who are in a squeeze between higher fuel prices and fewer customers, want a law changed that permits the so-called porteadores. They characterize these drivers as piratas. The permitted drivers drove slowly around Alajuela Monday, causing massive traffic jams behind them. Some jams were reported near Grecia and Esparza. There may have been blockades elsewhere. The drivers plan to bring their protest to the Cental Valley today in the vicinity of Grecia. Thursday they will be closer to the center of the city, they said. Drivers are now paying more for fuel but the higher taxi rates have reduced passengers. So the pirate drivers who undercut them are a target. Siquirres hospital pushed By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers from the Provincia de Limón are pushing proposed legislation that would create a hospital for the Cantón de Siquirres and the population of Matina. The idea has been talked about for 15 years. However, Jorge Méndez Zamora, a deputy from the Partido Liberación Nacional, supports the measure but says the other problem is locating medical specialists to the area. Power outages announced By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
San Antonio de Desamparados and Río Azul will have their electric power cut today while the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz S.A. conducts repairs from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday the power outage will be in Pozos de Santa Ana and the center of San Antonio de Belén, according to the company. |
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Third news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 141 |
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| Delay in new immigration law to be until Dec. 1, 2007 |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Arias administration officially wants to put off the effective date of the new immigration law until Dec. 1, 2007. That is the change the administration is going to ask the Asamblea Legislativa to make before the new law goes into effect in early August. President Óscar Arias Sánchez and Federico Berrocal spelled out the reasons in a cover note to lawmakers. Basically the administration does not have the resources or the manpower to handle the requirements of the new law, the cover note says. Berrocal, who is minister of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, said the immigration police would have to be expanded from the present 35 officers to 350 to do all that the law required. |
And other parts of the
Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería are
not prepared to handle the fines that would be handed out to persons
harboring illegal residents, Berrocal said. He added that there was
some question of the constitutionality of the law. In fact, the Arias administration wants a wholesale rewrite of the law which some feel is too hard on illegal aliens. The new law also criminalizes trafficking in persons, the so-called coyotes who help people immigrate to the United States. The previous security minister, Rogelio Ramos used to complain that officials had to release coyotes because there was no law against the practice, which is universally deplored. President Abel Pacheco supported the new law. The request to the legislators was expected. But the actual date of Dec. 1 is new information. The lawmakers are likely to comply. |
| Dog days won't stick around long this year due to Pacific
disturbances |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Thanks to weather disturbances in the Pacific, the Dog Days of July will be more like puppy days. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional says the dog days, called canículas in Spanish will not last long this year and the weather will be wetter than normal. Dog Days are better known high up in the Northern Hemisphere because they are linked to the appearance of Sirus, the Dog Star, in the heavens. They are the hottest and most humid time of summer. The period |
usually begins
after July 15 here. The Caribbean will have a chance to dry out a little bit today as the Pacific slope and northern zone get the brunt of the rain. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias has issued an alert because the low pressure over the country is expected to intensify encouraging rain. So the commission has declared the alert for the Central Pacific, the Central Valley and Pococí in the Provincia de Limón. |
| RACSA ready to sign customers for wireless cloud at
Escazú, Santa Ana |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Radiográfica Costarricense S.A., the Internet provider, says it is ready to take signups for its high-speed WiMax wireless service. The service is available in an eight kilometer radius of Cerro Abra, including Escazú and Santa Ana. The wireless station on the mountaintop catches the signal and carries it to the company's servers. During the rest of the year the company known as RACSA will be installing radio base stations from Alajuela on the west to Tres Rios on the east. The |
company is
motivated
because the one-time monopoly is now in competition with its parent
firm, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad and its Acelera
services via the phone lines. The company says that users of the new system just have to install a small antenna on the exterior of their building and a connection to the computer. Speeds will be from 512 kilobits per second download and 256 kps upload to 2 megabits per second download and 1 mps upload. More information is available here: |
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Fourth news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 141 |
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11 persons
associated with BetonSports indicted
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
(Posted at 6 p.m. Monday, July 17,
2006)
The U.S. government moved Monday to isolate bettors in that country
from BetonSports, the Costa Rican online gambling operation. It also
unsealed a complex 22-count criminal indictment against 11
individuals and four corporations, including Costa Rican residents
BetonSports chief executive David Carruthers, 49, and Gary
Kaplan, whom they identified as the founder and shareholder of the firm.In a parallel action, a federal judge, responding to a civil injunction request, ordered four U.S. telephone companies to cut off telephone calls to BetonSports here in Costa Rica and told the gambling firm to return to U.S. bettors money held on their behalf. The civil injunction also told the company to put notices on its Web sites telling U.S. residents they could not place bets or gamble. The U.S. government also is seeking $3.3 billion in back taxes on wagers taken from the United States and $4.5 billion more from Kaplan and other defendants. Arrests were made in the United States. FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents detained Carruthers Sunday afternoon at Dallas international airport as he was changing planes on a flight back to Costa Rica from England. Neil Scott Kaplan, 40, identified as Kaplan's relative, is in custody in Ft. Pierce, Florida, said the U.S. Attorney's Office in Missouri. A man identified as Tim Brown was arrested near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was to be released on $150,000 bond Monday. Carruthers faces a detention hearing Friday morning at which bail is likely to be a topic. He is an outspoken advocate of regulation of sportsbooks instead of prohibition. He went before a federal magistrate Monday afternoon in Fort Worth, Texas, to set the date of the detention hearing. The criminal indictment alleges that Gary Kaplan and Norman Steinberg, as the owners and operators of Millennium Sportsbook, Gibraltar Sportsbook, and North American Sports Association, took or caused their employees to take bets from undercover federal agents in St. Louis, who used undercover identities to open wagering accounts. The indictment also alleges that Kaplan and a firm named Mobile Promotions illegally transported equipment used to place bets and transmit wagering information across state lines and that DME Global Marketing and Fulfillment shipped equipment to Costa Rica from Florida, for BetonSports.com. Also charged are William Hernan Lenis, Monica Lenis and Manny Gustavo Lenis, owners and operators of the Florida companies, and William Hernan Lenis’ son, William Luis Lenis, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in the U.S. state of Missouri. |
Despite the federal action, a
spokesman for BetonSport in Mall San
Pedro said late Monday afternoon that the company was working normally.
The spokesman said that lawyers had been consulted. The company says BetonSports.com is one of the largest licensed and publicly traded online wagering companies in the world. Many of its 2,000 employees work at the Mall San Pedro offices. The company occupies seven floors there. Online gambling and sportsbooks are a major source of jobs for bilingual Costa Ricans. Police arrested four employees of Mobil Production outside Tampa's Raymond James Stadium in October. They were soliciting wagers ranging from $25 to $100,000, said a report in Online Casino News. Carruthers was quoted at the time saying that the betting is completely legal because the bets are placed in Costa Rica and other offshore sites, where gambling is allowed. Police disagreed. "Illegal commercial gambling across state and international borders is a crime," said U.S Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway of the Eastern District of Missouri in announcing the indictment. "Misuse of the Internet to violate the law can ultimately only serve to harm legitimate businesses. This indictment is but one step in a series of actions designed to punish and seize the profits of individuals who disregard federal and state laws." Warrants have been issued for Gary Kaplan and others who have not been arrested, including Lori Kaplan Multz and Peter Wilson, identified as media director for BetonSports.com. The broad racketeering conspiracy indictment alleges that the defendants agreed to conduct an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering acts, including repeated mail fraud, wire fraud, operation of an illegal gambling business and money laundering. It is a tricky legal question if Costa Rica will honor arrest warrants when gambling is not illegal here. The charges are the result of a joint investigation by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Tampa Police Department, the Jacksonville, Florida Sheriff's Office and NFL Security and NCAA Enforcement Office also assisted in the investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. |
| Volcano in Ecuador forces evacuation of 1,600 residents to
shelters |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano has spewed gas and ash for a fourth straight day, forcing nearby residents to evacuate their villages. Emergency officials said Monday that at least 1,600 people have taken refuge in shelters. Tungurahua, 130 kilometers (about 80 miles) south of Quito, has covered farmland and villages with volcanic |
ash. The president of a
farmer's association says area farmers are losing their crops. The 5,000-meter-tall (16,400-foot) volcano sent huge columns of ash into the air in 1999, forcing the evacuation of 17,000 residents of the town of Banos to the north. Historical eruptions of the volcano have been accompanied by strong explosions and by lava flows that reached populated areas. The last major eruption was in 1918. |
| News from the BBC up to the minute |
BBC sports news up to the minute |
| BBC news and sports feeds are deactivated in archive pages |
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