Click HERE for great hotel discounts

Police crimp Christmas
importation of fireworks


Costa Rican police have been cracking down on the illegal importation of gunpowder and hazardous fireworks into the country.

Police have arrested two Panamanian men, in separate incidents, to face allegations of attempting to smuggle the illegal commodities in the last two days, according to reports from the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública.

Fireworks are especially popular among Costa Ricans during the holiday seasons. However, most of the explosives and bottle rockets are illegal here.

A man with the last names Mora Leitón was arrested Monday in Corredores, Puntarenas, in possession of a large amount of illegal fireworks, said the Fuerza Pública.  The ministry said that the accused was travelling without the proper documentation and was hiding fireworks and black-market gunpowder in his car.  Mora Leitón, the merchandise and the car have all been detained, according to a police report.

Tuesday, police arrested another Panamanian, this time with the last names Rivera Álvarez.  Police reported that the 57 year old was intercepted with illegal gunpowder at a crossing on the Costa Rican–Panamanian border. 

According to the ministry, the sale of gunpowder to youths or disabled persons can mean a prison sentence of between three to seven years.

Police reported having confiscated a large amount of illegal fireworks and gunpowder so far this year.  One child has suffered severe burns.

Canadian air traveler
will face cocaine count
 

Drug agents detained a Canadian man, Tuesday and said he was carrying more than two kilograms of cocaine at Juan Santamaría airport.

The accused, who goes by the last names Espinal Rodríguez, was on his way home to Canada when Costa Rican drug control officers searched him.

A report from the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública said that police found 2,219 grams of the illegal narcotic tapped to Rodríguez's abdomen and legs.  The police also confiscated  $174,000 in cash from the suspect, they said.


Reader says court claims
won't be honored in U.S.

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Your Brother’s article  Tuesday, which suggested that Oswaldo and/or his international fugitive brother Enrique, who perpetrated perhaps the largest fraud ever on American ex-patriates, can sue the same folks they ripped off for damages resulting from the expats’ recovery efforts, is one of the most audacious comedy pieces I’ve ever read.  Costa Rican lawyers must be INSANE if they think their kangaroo-court judgments against Americans even hold a DROP of water in the United States.

All it takes is a “court action,” the article says, according to  some unnamed U.S. lawyers.  I’d love to see the jailed Oswaldo con-artist or his Interpol brother bring the matter to a U.S. court.  That would then establish a U.S. jurisdication for this fiasco and would expose the loathesome Brothers to actions against them in a U.S. court.

I think we’d all love to see Oswaldo flown up to the EE.UU. In shackles to face the music of the American justice system, which is NOT the rigged game these clowns are used to in Costa Rica.

Plaintiff’s assets in the U.S. are in obsolutely NO danger of being forfeited to a kangaroo-court judgement stemming from this Brothers situation.  Please don’t put Brothers “investors” through more than they have already been exposed to.

Jeff Lindheimer
Pittsburgh, PA

EDITOR’S NOTE: A.M. Costa Rica stands by the story and points out that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Florida helped investigate the Villalobos case and banking activities there. So far the U.S. attorney has declined to open any criminal investigation. However, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is investigating Villalobos creditors who did not declare the interest payments.


U.S. foreign policy trend
causes loss of confidence

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Mr. Harry Parisers’ letter, “U.S. has history of backing dictators like Pinochet”, gives us a stinging synopsis of U.S. foreign policy intrigue, failure, and incompetence.

The revelations beg the question how and why our ‘intelligence’ services continuously make such egregious errors decade after decade?

Given these facts, together with the Vietnam, Afghani, and Iraqi debacle, the Republic seems lost, and doomed to collapse.

Are there reasonable answers which might restore confidence in our government?



Communist acts ignored

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Just to make it short and sweet, the left-winged, anti-Americans love to criticize about fascist administrations (so called) while no one seems to care about the 50 million that were slaughtered by Joe Stalin or the millions by Mao Tse Tung. Joe McCarthy was the bad guy. There was no domino theory. And the actors in Hollywood weren’t Communists, they were just going to meetings. Let’s talk about your dillusional world, Mr. Pariser.

 

Are you considering doing business with a burglar alarm company?

If so, you should contact me first
for my opinion

prometheousthegreek@gmail.com