Costa Rica’s Safe-Haven Myth Meets A New Era Of Violence

For decades, Costa Rica was sold as the “Switzerland of Central America”: no army, stable democracy, rainforest tourism and the promise that serious violence happened somewhere else. That image drew investors and retirees.

Today it is colliding with rising murders, entrenched cartels and corruption cases that reach into the state. The shift shows up in the data. Costa Rica logged 603 homicides in 2017 and 907 in 2023, a modern record.

Security officials say criminal groups have multiplied from about 35 to 340 in a decade, turning parts of the country from discreet transit corridor into contested territory where gangs extort businesses, fight over ports and recruit teenagers.

The crisis now reaches beyond poor neighborhoods. Former security minister and Supreme Court judge Celso Gamboa was arrested after a U.S. grand jury accused him of helping move cocaine, shortly after a constitutional reform allowed Costa Rica to extradite its own citizens for serious crimes.

At the same time, a large Nicaraguan exile community watched one of its best-known figures, retired army major and Ortega critic Roberto Samcam, shot dead near San José, raising doubts about how safe even high-profile refugees really are.

Costa Rica at a Crossroads: Force or Social Renewal

Politics has moved with the shock. President Rodrigo Chaves faces a public that lists crime and drugs as its top worry, yet he retains approval ratings above 60 percent, and his chosen successor, former minister Laura Fernández, leads early polls, a sign that voters want firmer authority and faster results.

The government’s main answer so far has been force: a growing prison population, overcrowded cells and plans for a new high-security complex inspired by El Salvador’s “mega-prison.”

Behind these headlines lies a quieter erosion. Social spending has fallen by roughly four percentage points of GDP since 2020, thinning the schools, clinics and neighborhood programs that once offered young Costa Ricans a path other than gangs.

The country now faces a choice with regional implications: rely mainly on crackdowns and prisons, or combine firm policing with renewed investment in the social floor that once made Costa Rica a safe haven.