by Rod Hughes

If you are a Costa Rican resident you may be able to earn a cool $250,000. All you have to do is to help police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation find US. terrorist suspect Daniel Andreas San Diego, believed to be residing in this country.

That is what a press release from the U.S. embassy in Pavas states. San Diego is believed to have placed two bombs in Emeryville, California, offices of the Chiron Corp. on Aug. 28, 2003. The first bomb exploded at the main entrance, the second, believed to have set to go off when firemen were in the building, was found but exploded before it could be disarmed. Fortunately there were no injuries.

He is accused of striking again against the Shaklee company at Pleasantville, California, on Sept. 26, 2003, Again, no injuries were incurred and, again, he managed to evade the police cordon. He is believed now living and working in Costa Rica, possibly with U.S. expatriots or English-speaking persons and has computer programming expertise. He is known as an animal rights extremist, according to the embassy.

San Diego is a 29 year old white male with brown hair and eyes, about 160 lbs. and about 5 ft. 8 in. tall. Approach with caution—he may be armed.

by Rod Hughes

As all the media based in Costa Rica have reported, hackers have robbed local people doing banking and even bill paying on line. What is the response of banks whose security systems are foiled and accounts are rifled?

“Tough,” says a report in today’s La Nacion, the nation’s largest newspaper. Local banks, even the privately owned ones with foreign headquarters, are under no legal compunction to reimburse their customers. Banks in developed countries will reimburse clients for Internet theft unless it is proven that it was the result of the customer’s carelessness in protecting his identity. But not here.

In fact, notes La Nacion financial reporter Hazel Feigenblatt, in Britain the same legal vacuum exists but the banks voluntarily stand behind the integrity of their bank accounts, having created their own code. Nor can the official financial supervising body, SUGEF, supposedly a watchdog,agency, force banks to reimburse Internet theft victims.

Worse, says the report, many banks including the largest official bank, Banco Nacional, have only one security measure in place, a single password. The United States has, since 2005, deemed this security system “inadequate.” Meanwhile, some 500 electronic theft complaints have been filed for thousands of dollars of losses and hackers are thinking up new ways to rip people off every day. The variety of ploys is staggering, sniffers, pharming, robots, keyloggers and more.

The banks response is typified by Mario Castillo, president of the Costa Rican Banking Association, who shrugged, “You can’t ask (the banks) to be responsible for something where they have no responsibility.” He did, however, say the association would collaborate on drafting legislation to plug the legal hole, safe in the knowledge that it takes years to pass any law in this country

But not all bank customers are quite so vulnerable. HSBC and, recently, Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) have instituted a second measure against hackers, as well as BAC San Jose, although that bank charges extra for it as an optional service. BCR assistant manager Mario Rivera said that since BCR installed 25,000 “dynamic codes” in December, they have not had a single complaint of theft. Banca Proamerica has a system but only for certain customers and Scotiabank manager Luis Lieberman says his bank will have one soon.

But most of the banks in the country refused or neglected to respond to La Nacion’s inquiries. It appears that until lawmakers force them to, as reporter Feigenblatt wrote, “The banks don’t have to answer to anyone.”

by Rod Hughes

Costa Ricans are literally up in arms over the crime wave that, finally, the government is taking steps to combat. Gun permit applications hit a record 8,551 last year, surpassing the 2001 record of 8,324 firearms registered, reported Central America’s leading English-language paper, The Tico Times. But police are quick to point out that this defensive stance has its pitfalls and often guns meant for home defense fall into criminal hands.

Armament Administration director William Hidalgo, whose agency grants the permits, holds the traditional Costa Rican point of view–he disapproves of the trend. “Unfortunately, people believe that going around armed will keep them safe, but actually, it’s just the opposite. Criminals can steal the weapon. (which often goes) into the black market to end up being used in another assault,” he told the newspaper. He owns no firearms.

He points out that a gun owner shoulders a great responsibility when he gets his weapon and “must continue practicing and training to the maximum. ” Jose Ojeda, owner of the CDC Shooting Range in San Jose’s western suburb, Pavas, agrees but has another view of the dangers to the owner. “Just by showing the gun and saying, ‘I’m armed and will shoot you,” the thieves will usually just run away. I hear from people every day who say they scared some thieves away…by firing some rounds into the air.”

Perhaps he needs some lessons in responsibility himself. Firing a weapon into the air in a densely populated urban area is irresponsible—whatever goes up must come down and stories about about injuries with stray bullets. He is also ignoring another fact: Crime in this country is far more violent than it was even 30 years ago. One cannot count on a burglar to be unarmed or unwilling to use his weapon. And a time-honored principal is that if you point a weapon at someone, you should be ready to use it.

Some decades ago in Escazu, another San Jose suburb, a North American confronted a would-be burglar armed with a knife. The home owner fired his .45 caliber Colt automatic several times near the burglar to frighten him but the lawbreaker continued advancing. Inevitably the pistol jammed and the homeowner was fatally stabbed. Only then did the wife loose the German Shepherd her husband had ordered her to keep leashed. The Shepherd was too much for the burglar who fled.

Another important factor is that an intruder has the advantage of surprise. If the gun is locked away for safety and even left unloaded one will not likely to have time to use it. Leaving it at the ready raises another danger, as a spate of accidental shootings of small children shooting playmates a few years ago proved. But even kept handy, or even carried in a holster, is not a sure defense, as anyone who has ever tried to shoot a firearm with the safety catch on can attest.

At this point, we owe it to the reader to point out that this reporter was raised with firearms in rural Oregon and owned a pistol there, a Ruger revolver, single-action to give that extra split-second to assure that gun would not be fired until the target was identified and the background would not rebound the bullet dangerously. Living here for 37 years, he has never owned a firearm.

But there are exceptions. Eddy Ryan, a former New Yorker and owner of Cista de Papito Hotel at Playa Cocles on the Caribbean, said business owners there raised funds for their own defense force. “You have basically undermanned, undertrained, underpaid, underorganized and unsupervised police…The bottom line is nobody was being served by waiting for police,” he told Tico Times reporter Nick Wilkinson. The solution was to hire six private guards to patrol, not only to protect themselves but tourists as well.

Another, better, approach is an unarmed neighborhood watch committee—if, unlike Ryan, one lives in an urban area. After several burglaries in the area, this reporter joined one shortly after the Ministry of Security organized the movement in 1997. A series of police lectures followed before the committee gained authorized status. Emphasized were that we were an early-warning force only and did not go out armed. If we saw a neighbor’s home being burglarized, we did not intervene but called the police, then the resident. We could confront a troublemaker but never alone. If a crime occurred in the street, our job was to keep people from contaminating the crime scene until OIJ, the judicial police and the only force trained in CSI (crime scene investigation) arrived.

One aspect of life in this country should be emphasized: Despite the record number of firearm purchases, one is more apt to be attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees than assaulted. Crime is more frequent, as is underscored by the armed assault on the home of a former director of the National Police School reported in a recent article on these pages. But this is a worldwide phenomenon Unfortunately, the increased use of drugs, once rare, has spread and has raised the violence level. Any news story about crime may make it sound as if violence is a cottage industry here. It definitely is not in Costa Rica.

by Rod Hughes

Residents here who earn in dollars or who have dollar accounts are waiting for the other shoe to drop, when the Central Bank lets the value of the dollar vs. the colon sink even lower. The bank lowered the dollar by 4% last Nov. 21, making exporters and dollar savers unhappy.

As explained by business writer Peter Krupa of The English-language weekly The Tico Times in the Feb. 1 edition, the situation carries the danger to this country of overheating the financial situation, leading to even more inflation than the 10+% suffered last year. The bank may lower the dollar value even further.

“As dollars brought by tourists and foreign investors flood into the Costa Rican economy,” wrote Krupa, “the value of the colon against the dollar continues to push up and nudge the exchange rate down, forcing the Central Bank to intervene and buy up the dollars.. By absorbing that foreign currency, the Central Bank keeps the colon’s exchange rate from dropping below the lower limit.”

In the first weeks of this year, the bank had to step in and buy dollars at a furious clip—$43 million in one week alone. “For every dollar the Central Bank buys,” added Krupa, “it has to emit colones and more currency in the market can mean higher inflation.” Add to that the danger of foreign speculators who buy colones as they grow more valuable, and the inflation is raised again.

Krupa writes that a solution would be a completely free-floating exchange rate and that is what a report late last year by Citigroup economist Jorge Pastrana predicted the bank would do the second half of 2008. It would “eliminate the need to emit colones and, by introducing a greater element of risk, make the colon a less attractive investment” for foreign spculators, notes Krupa.

Meanwhile, La Nacion reports that Costa Ricans are saving and investing more in their own currency. In the past 3 months individuals and companies are investing at a rate of 56% colones vs. 44% dollars. These almost an exact reversal, from before the crawling bands were implemented, when 55% of investments were in dollars. As for loans 50% are now in colones, whereas before 60% were in dollars according to the Central Bank of Costa Rica.

by Rod Hughes

Sometimes, it pays to verify the address before you make an armed visit to a home. Two of at least four armed robbers are under arrest after the gang tried to assault the Santa Ana home of the former director of the National Police School yesterday.

Bright and early at 9 a.m. yesterday morning, the gang entered the home of Colon Bermudez and covered Bermudez and a relative at gunpoint. They tied Bermudez and the other victim up with adhesive tape and went to work efficiently to take valuables and computers out to a waiting truck. But an unidentified person had already alerted police who were waiting for the truck as it drove off, stopping it barely 100 yards from the ransacked home and arresting the two occupants.

The other bandits, still inside the home, managed to escape and are currently being sought. Bermudez and his companion, released from the tape by police, were shaken but unhurt. The two detained suspects are minors, police said.

by Rod Hughes

A small, somewhat sensational newspaper called La Teja (Spanish for a roof tile, used as street slang for 100 colones, once issued as a bill when it had a higher value) published a news story recently condemning Riteve, the Ministry of Transport concessionaire for vehicular inspections. The headline read “It’s easy to fool Riteve.”

On the surface, it reads like a legitimate investigative piece. The Association of Integral Costa Rican Repair Shops (ATICOS) selected a spotless 1987 Toyota Corolla and purposely installed defective shock absorbers, as well as lights the mechanics claimed were more powerful than permitted on the road. Early in the news story the paper claims the inspection allows death traps to pass..

But, reader beware! Mechanics here dislike Riteve because the Ministry of Transport took inspections out of the hands of “authorized” private automotive repair shops and let out bidding which Riteve won with the latest automotive testing equipment. In fact, before the ministry relaxed its standards late in the Pacheco Administration, some cars, trucks and buses had to make multiple visits to Riteve inspection points.

Before Riteve, the individual shops had a good thing going for them. It was easy to pass inspection if one slipped the mechanic a few tejas or a few thousand colones if the situation was grave. Granted, a few shops were legitimate but some, if the motorist declined to bribe the mechanic, would insist that expensive repairs were needed. (It was difficult to prove corruption in the ministry authorization of these shops, so not even nosy newshounds were unable to get publishable information.)

The result of this system were trucks, buses and even a few cars laying down dense smokescreens and frequent news stories blaming accidents on faulty mechanical conditions. The air quality deteriorated steadily from traffic in the metropolitan area, bus brakes failed and the average motorist considered shock absorbers optional equipment only slightly less important than having a really loud audio system in the car.

Kenneth Lopez, Riteve’s quality control manager, defended the inspection, noting that efficiency of the front shocks on the Toyota were rated at only 27% while those in the rear were 74%, admitting these figures are low but noting that one could not say the shocks were really “bad.” They had been installed properly, he added. As for the headlights, they were aimed properly and more is not required under ministry regulations that govern inspections.

Actually the car did not pass inspection, as the newspaper would have one believe from its slanted presentation. Berlioth Herrera, Riteve spokeman, said the Toyota failed because of a serious fluid leak from the engine, not for such safety defects as brakes, shocks or lights. But ATICOS spokeman Eddy Gonzalez insisted that the shock absorbers his association installed to discredit the inspection made the car dangerous to drive.

It is for the individual motorist reading these conflicting opinions to sort all this out. Perhaps the only way the average driver be certain is to tind a competent, reliable mechanic and follow his advice. But finding that mechanic will take time and patience.