'Criminal tourism' phrase
created by investigators


There's a new phrase: criminal tourism. Investigators coined the phrase when they arrested two men from Nigeria who traveled here at the same time a wave of automatic teller thefts began.

The men, who have the last names of Ayanboye and Johnson, are accused of obtaining credit cards from Europeans, producing twinned credit cards and otherwise creating the ability to make dozens of fraudulent withdrawals from automatic teller machines. Those who took the money also had PIN numbers.

Investigators here were alerted by the police in Nigeria where people began complaining about fraudulent charges to their accounts. The banks that were the greatest victims of the crimes here are HSBC and Scotiabank, said the Poder Judicial.

Agents conducted a raid, and the two men are now in preventative detention. Agents found and confiscated 13 million colons, some $23,600 and amounts of money in many other currencies.


Judicial surplus might
finance victims' office


The Corte Suprema de Justicia has a 6 billion colon surplus that lawmakers want to use to support a proposed office to protect witnesses, victims and judges. That amount is about $10.9 million.

The Comisión Especial de Seguridad Ciudadana and the legislature's analysis department encountered the surplus by studying the budget. Lawmakers also are wondering what the original purpose of the money was and why was it not spent.

Financing is the stumbling block to a proposal to protect witnesses and victims, Judges were added later as a few faced threats and a judicial office in Pavas was firebombed. Law enforcement officials say that a number of witnesses to crime are murdered each year before they can be called to testify.

Officials are hoping to set up a witness protection program, but the big problem was money. Janina del Vecchio, the security minister, testified in a committee hearing that her Fuerza Pública just did not have the money.

The proposed office is being called the Oficina de Protección de Víctima, Testigos, Jueces y otros intervinientes en los procesos judiciales. Lawmakers said they expected the courts to provide the money, which is an estimated 1.6 billion colons a year, about $2.9 million


Election tribunal emptied
after call reports bomb


An afternoon bomb scare at the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones in San José led to mass evacuations and multiple roadblocks by the Fuerza Pública.

According to officer Javier García, the bomb threat came in at 12:30 p.m when someone called the central telephone operators at the Tribunal. Officer Carlos Leo said the caller was a male who used a public telephone. By 1 p.m. the Fuerza Pública had cut off all main roads leading to the Tribunal, blocking pedestrians, cars, buses and taxis.

About 500 employees from the tribunal were evacuated from the building, said García, and relocated to the Parque Nacional. In addition to the Fuerza Pública, the evacuation was handled by the tribunals internal security.

A bomb squad was called in to inspect the building, which is bordered on the east by the Parque Nacional and is between avenidas 1 and 3.

About 60 officers and the canine unit searched for explosives that the caller said had been left in a bathroom.