Costa Rica locked up greater than 120 inmates this week in a brand new $35million mega jail, constructed with the assistance of the Salvadoran authorities on the outskirts of San Jose.
The justice ministry shared pictures displaying rows of prisoners wearing orange jumpsuits, seated with shaved heads bowed and their fingers behind their necks.
The scenes are harking back to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), the mega jail the place the polarising president Nayib Bukele’s authorities holds tens of hundreds of gang members and suspected gang associates.
Bukele has managed to cut back numbers to a historic low in El Salvador however faces accusations of human rights abuses in the course of the state of emergency that started in 2022 and has imprisoned greater than 91,000 folks.
Costa Rica’s most safety jail, which it calls the Excessive Containment Middle in opposition to Organized Crime (CACCO), has been offered by the federal government of right-wing President Laura Fernandez as a logo of a brand new ‘robust on crime’ method.
The jail – constructed to incarcerate Costa Rica’s most harmful criminals – has a capability for five,100 inmates, equal to twenty % of the nation’s jail inhabitants.
Costa Rica, lengthy thought to be one of many most secure nations in Latin America, has lately skilled a pointy rise in violence linked to drug trafficking and arranged crime.
The nation recorded a document variety of homicides in 2023. Authorities attribute most killings to disputes between prison teams over drug trafficking routes and markets.
Inmates sit on the ground with their fingers on their heads after being transferred to the Middle for Excessive Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO), a brand new maximum-security jail inbuilt cooperation with the federal government of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, in Alajuela, Costa Rica
The justice ministry shared pictures displaying rows of prisoners wearing orange jumpsuits with their heads shaved
Costa Rica’s most safety jail has been offered by the federal government as a logo of a brand new ‘robust on crime’ method
The jail has a capability for five,100 inmates
A jail guard checks an inmate’s tattoos following his switch to the Middle for Excessive Containment of Organized Crime in Costa Rica
‘Costa Rica is writing a brand new chapter in its penitentiary historical past,’ Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar mentioned in a press release.
‘CACCO is a monument to nationwide safety, a forceful response to organized crime, and a assure that the state will train its authority with out hesitation.’
Aguilar has mentioned the brand new facility can even assist cut back overcrowding in the jail system.
For many years, Costa Rica was a ‘passive’ transit zone for medication from South America, in accordance with the group Perception Crime.
However with out a military, and with intensive jungle and ports on each coasts, it started to draw Mexican and Colombian cartels.
On the finish of the final decade, a brand new cargo terminal reworked the Caribbean port of Limón right into a storage and transshipment level for cocaine destined for Europe, in accordance with the US State Division, which, in a 2025 report, additionally detected fentanyl distribution within the Central American nation.
Now, the 2 main Mexican cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco, are current within the nation, as are the Colombian Clan del Golfo, the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua — all thought of terrorist organizations by the US — and Italian mafias, whereas native cartels proliferate, defined Vanda Felbab-Brown, an organized crime researcher on the Brookings Establishment.
The cartels’ curiosity in new routes and the rivalry between the 2 main Mexican cartels ‘pushed native proxies to battle with one another after which drove homicides up’ in Costa Rica, Felbab-Brown famous.
Funds to those gangs in medication developed native markets that additional elevated the violence, and the authorities felt overwhelmed.
Exterior view of the Excessive-Safety Middle for Organized Crime Containment (CACCO) in Alajuela, Costa Rica
A cell, together with the clothes to be worn by inmates, is seen on the Excessive-Safety Middle for the Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO) throughout its inauguration in Alajuela, Costa Rica
Costa Rica has lately skilled a pointy rise in violence linked to drug trafficking and arranged crime
A view contained in the Middle for Excessive Containment of Organized Crime
The alarm was raised in 2023 when the nation registered a document 907 homicides — a determine that has decreased, however solely barely — and the federal government acknowledged that they have been largely as a result of organized crime.
Insecurity, though removed from that of Ecuador or Mexico, turned the largest concern for Costa Ricans and was a key think about Fernández’s election.
It was then that Fernández’s predecessor, Rodrigo Chaves, sought out Bukele, whose success in chopping down killings led his counterparts within the area to show to him for inspiration on safety coverage.
Chaves bestowed him with a diplomatic honour, and despatched his safety minister to go to the CECOT.
The Salvadoran president, in flip, donated the design for the jail to the Costa Rican authorities.
The CECOT has change into a logo of Bukele’s safety coverage and is more and more being imitated. Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa opened an analogous jail final yr.
Honduras deliberate one thing comparable on an island, although it has not but been constructed.
And Peru’s Keiko Fujimori has simply introduced a visit to El Salvador in response to the rise in homicides and extortion.
The measures are usually well-liked, and a big portion of the Costa Rican inhabitants helps the brand new mega-prison.
El Salvador’s maximum-security mega-prison first gained worldwide consideration when the Trump administration despatched greater than 250 Venezuelan deportees with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua, with out offering proof.
El Salvador has imprisoned greater than 90,000 folks beneath a state of exception, an emergency measure that started in March 2022 and suspends sure constitutional rights to battle gangs.
El Salvador now has the best incarceration price per capita, with about 1.5 per cent of its inhabitants behind bars, and Bukele has defended the mass arrests as obligatory to enhance public security.
Homicides reached a peak of 103 per 100,000 residents in 2015 and have been at 53 per 100,000 in 2018, the yr earlier than Bukele took workplace.
Scenes in Costa Rica are harking back to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre, the mega jail the place President Nayib Bukele’s authorities holds tens of hundreds of inmates. Pictured: Prisoners sit inside cells on the jail referred to as the Terrorism Confinement Middle (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador
Salvadoran inmates carry out workouts throughout a tour of the Terrorism Confinement Middle (CECOT) on October 16, 2026 in Tecoluca, El Salvador
El Salvador has imprisoned greater than 90,000 folks beneath a state of exception, an emergency measure that started in March 2022. Pictured: Jail brokers observe gang members as they get off a bus at their arrival after 2000 gang members have been transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Centre on February 24, 2023
Inmates belonging to the MS-13 and 18 gangs to the CECOT in Tecoluca, 74 km southeast of San Salvador, on March 15, 2023
El Salvador now has the best incarceration price per capita, with about 1.5 per cent of its inhabitants behind bars
Alleged members of the Barrio 18 gang are offered to the media after being arrested on expenses of the disappearance or homicide of a number of folks, together with two quick meals supply drivers, in Colon, El Salvador March 3, 2022
El Salvador’s safety measures have come beneath scrutiny by human rights teams, which have documented hundreds of instances of arbitrary arrests
A minimum of 564 folks have died in state custody, in accordance with the Salvadoran human rights teams
That quantity drastically decreased to 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025, although consultants say the numbers might be skewed as a result of the federal government has narrowed its definition of murder.
The measure has come beneath scrutiny by human rights teams, which have documented hundreds of instances of arbitrary arrests.
The rushed velocity of the mass arrests and a quota system for authorities meant that some individuals who had nothing to do with gangs have been wrongfully imprisoned, they are saying.
Rights that stay suspended embody the suitable to be told of the explanations for detention, entry to authorized counsel, and visitation.
Many households have had no contact with their relations, leaving them to marvel if they’re alive.
A minimum of 564 folks have died in state custody, in accordance with the Salvadoran human rights group Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, or Humanitarian Authorized Help.
In the meantime, inmates who’ve since been launched alleged they have been overwhelmed and tortured.
