Cablegate: Costa Rica Mini-Dublin Group Report

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

251712Z Nov 05

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SAN JOSE 002726

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR INL/PC MCKENCHNIE, INL/LP FOR SUTOW

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SNAR KJUS KCRM CS
SUBJECT: COSTA RICA MINI-DUBLIN GROUP REPORT

REF: STATE 200169

1. Summary, Post convened a mini-Dublin Group meeting on
November 18, 2005 with representatives from the Embassies of
Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The
Spanish, French, and Canadian Embassies were unable to
participate in the meeting but provided information related
to their very limited programs in Costa Rica. The report
below provides a summary of the meeting and information
requested in reftel.

General Situation
-----------------

2. Costa Rica continues to serve as a major transit point for
illegal narcotics destined to the United States and Europe
from production sites in South America. Costa Rica's
geographic position astride important sea routes, it's large
maritime area (10 times larger than its land mass), and it's
distance from Colombia combine to make the country an ideal
logistics platform for drug trafficking organizations moving
narcotics to the U.S. The Pan-American highway serves as a
major thoroughfare for large land shipments while a lack of
resources at Costa Rica's three international airports
provide opportunities for smuggling heroin to both the U.S.
and Europe. Costa Rica continues to implement its
comprehensive national drug plan, drafted in 2003. Costa
Rica has money laundering legislation in place and strict
controls on precursor chemicals, although implementation is
uneven. The GOCR continues to demonstrate professionalism
and reliability as USG partners in combating narcotics
trafficking. Costa Rican authorities have aggressively
investigated allegations of internal corruption and
successfully prosecuted numerous officials including more
than 20 police officers, a prosecutor, and a judge.

--Legal Framework: Costa Rica is compliant with all UN drug
conventions. Costa Rica has not executed any new agreements
to date in 2005, but is about to engage in an exchange of
diplomatic notes accepting U.S. terms on the use of the
Cooperating Nation Information Exchange System (CNIES).

--Trafficking Issues: Costa Rican authorities have seized a
record 6,749 kilograms of cocaine to date in 2005. The drug
control police (PCD) increased seizures of crack (17,393
"rocks" compared to 13,339 in 2004) and doubled the
destruction of marijuana plants to over one million. The PCD
seized 881 kilos of marijuana and 49.38 kilos of heroin. At
a conservative $18,000 per kilo, the street value of the
seized cocaine alone exceeds $121.4 million.

--Demand Issues: Seizures of MDMA/Ecstasy are down
dramatically from 1,633 tablet in 2004 to 41 tablets to date
in 2005. Post provided $10,000 in INL funds for a demand
reduction campaign in 2004 targeting Ecstasy. In 2005, we
are spending an additional $10,000 for a broader demand
reduction campaign targeting middle school-age children
across the country.

--Domestic Production: Low-quality marihuana is produced for
internal consumption in Costa Rica. In previous years,
high-quality hydroponic marijuana production has been
interdicted. Reporting indicates that this activity
continues and is likely growing in Costa Rica, but we had no
seizures of hydroponic marijuana in 2005. As mentioned
earlier, Costa Rican police eradicated over 1,071,000
marijuana plants in 2005.

--Donor activities: The USG's bilateral counter-narcotics
assistance program is the only one of substance among the
Dublin Group Donors in Costa Rica. Germany maintains
criminal investigators in Mexico and Colombia who visit Costa
Rica on a quarterly basis. The German representative
informed the group that due to resource restrictions, her
government will no longer conduct bilateral training in
Central American. Germany will continue to occasionaly
sponsor regional conferences. The Netherlands exchanges
information (primarily related to the detection of Ecstasy)
with GOCR officials via an Attache in Colombia. A Dutch
Frigate is currently calling on the port of Limon in Costa
Rica. This is the first such visit according to the Dutch
representative. At last year's mini-Dublin, Dutch
representatives told us they expected to ratify the
multilateral "Agreement Concerning Cooperation in Suppressing
Illicit Maritime and Aeronautical Trafficking in Narcotics
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in the Caribbean Area" by
April of 2005. At this year's meeting, these officials could
not speculate when their government might ratify. The
British government expects to ratify the agreement within a
few weeks. The British government also exchanges information
with GOCR officials via an Attache in Panama. Spain provides
generalized bilateral support to the police, but this support
is not focused on narcotics. The French Embassy informed us
outside the Dublin process that France also runs a small
bilateral assistance program for Costa Rican police, but like
Spain's, the program does not focus on narcotics in any way.
Canada provides generalized counter-narcotics assistance to
all of Central America through the OAS and CICAD.

International Law Enforcement Cooperation: All of the
participants agreed on the need for enhanced coordination in
the area of money laundering. The Dutch representative
stated that his government's limited resources on this front
are focused on Panama. We agreed to keep each other informed
about visiting experts, and to meet more frequently to
enhance our coordination.
LANGDALE

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