by Rod Hughes

The daily newspaper Al Dia reported today that Bill Gates–yes, THAT Bill Gates–and his wife, Melinda and two of their three children were seen yesterday on vacation in San Carlos, north of San Jose, at a resort hotel. Informants told the paper that the computer software magnate was dressed in polo shirt, shorts and sandals.

According to Al Dia’s sources, a helicopter whisked the Gates family to the Hotel Kioro at La Fortuna. The source added that Minister of the Presidency Rodrigo Arias was also in the area but that the software innovator and the highest cabinet official did not meet.

Immigration source Heidy Bonilla, told Al Dia that a certain William Henry Gates III (the cumbersome name the boyish and informal Gates must lug around with him for official use) entered the country last Friday and thinks he plans to leave next Saturday.

President Oscar Arias met with Gates last year at a conference in Colombia and is known for never ending a conversation with a foreigner without a warm invitation to visit this country.

by Rod Hughes

Costa Rica’s Most Wanted woman has been discovered, alive and well, living in a $1.5 million home in a posh neighborhood on Long Island near New York City under a false identity. She escaped from Costa Rica in November, 1998, after having been found guilty of the murder of Jose Andres Borrase.

Her former boyfriend, Laureano Montero, is currently serving a 25 year homicide sentence here for the same murder. Magdalena Pacheco’s capture came not a moment too soon–the Interpol statute of limitations on her capture would have run out in less than a year. The trail after her escape led through a series of false identities from The Netherlands to Panama, from Britain to Colombia, to Guatemala to, finally, the United States, according to the daily paper, La Nacion.

The celebrated case began on Nov. 19, 1997, when Borrase’s body was found in a coffee field. Pacheco and Montero were arrested, tried and convicted but Pacheco fled the country before sentencing. After a series of identities and residences, she settled in the U.S. under the forged ID of a Guatemalan, Veronica Giron, obtained residency and married a Costa Rican identified by authorities only as Carvajal. They have three children, La Nacion said.

According to police, the murder victim, son of Andres Borrase, former publisher of the daily newspaper La Prensa Libre, was lured to the Montero-Pacheco home. Hours later, his body was found.

Unfortunately, it is not infrequent for local criminals to escape in the lapse between conviction and sentencing. Indeed, they are often left free by the court in that interim. Pacheco will be deported from the U.S. by immigration authorities due to her forged papers. La Nacion reported that Pacheco’s arrest could involve her husband, Carvajal, in legal difficulties in New York, as well.

La Nacion reported that Pacheco lived a seclusive life due to her state as a fugitive from justice, never attending school functions of her children, going out only at night. Her neighbors only knew her as “the Guatemalan woman.”

by Rod Hughes

President Oscar Arias went on national television last night, obviously perturbed, to try to lay to rest rumors of FARC penetration into the political fabric of Costa Rica. The rumors stem from a speculative statement made March 15 by former Public Security Minister Fernando Berrocal that the Colombian FARC guerrillas/narco-terrorists might turn up on captured computer files.

Berrocal “resigned” suddenly in the furor following his statement, This is not the first time a member of the President’s close political family has resigned under fire. Vice President Kevin Casas stepped down late last year after his confidential recommendations of political arm twisting in order to pressure ratification the Central American Free Trade Agreement were leaked to the press.

But Arias did not at that time feel the need to go on TV and his specific naming of Berrocal last night in his message was all but unprecedented. His message promised full disclosure of any proven connection between politicians and narco traffickers. But he emphasized that the Colombian government, whose troops had captured the FARC laptops on March 1, had found no evidence of political involvement in Costa Rica.

The President then went on to emphasize that Costa Rica is a country of law where evidence is needed before naming names and warned against a “witch hunt” that could ruin reputations without such evidence. Top Colombian officials have confirmed, he said, that no sign of any political conspiracy with FARC exists.

Costa Rica is a country without a history of a Warren Commission Report or a Watergate, so the President has no experience with public denials and the persistence of conspiracy theorists. But it is unlikely that his brief TV appearance will silence them, Moreover, the Legislative Assembly special investigative committee of lawmakers will keep the topic an open one until its report is drafted three months from now. (See articles 1649,1650, 1652, 1660 on this newsfeed.)