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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Costa Rica's Most Wanted 'Diablo' Finally FAFO'd in Wild Sunrise Shootout |
| 2026-07-26 |
| [PJM] It's 5 a.m. in Costa Rica, about half an hour before sunrise. There's a farm near the border the country shares with Nicaragua. Drones monitor the perimeter. Tactical teams move through the dark with one goal, when suddenly, the place erupts with gunfire. Five or six officers go down. One man who was protecting the farm was killed. The shootout lasts for an hour, but when it comes to an end, the most wanted man in Costa Rica, a man with a bounty on his head in the United States, too, is in handcuffs. "El Diablo" has been caught after a decade-long manhunt. Alejandro Arias Monge was not your typical cartel boss, but he was not a good dude, and the entire Western Hemisphere is safer for having him off the streets. Known as "El Diablo," the Spanish phrase for "the devil," he was born in the Costa Rican town of Guápiles in 1984. He began living a life of crime as a teenager, robbing homes in his community. He eventually escalated to the drug business. He had cells in all seven of Costa Rica's provinces, and his transnational criminal organization was known for being extremely brutal. Costa Rican authorities suggest he was responsible for at least 100 murders over the years, and those are just the ones they know about. In 2016, he got into a feud with a rival drug boss, which left a trail of burned and decapitated bodies across parts of Costa Rica. He and his men also weaponized social media, using it to threaten citizens and even police officers. They'd post pictures of drugs and weapons, warning messages to law enforcement and other political figures, and even videos of some of the grisly murders they committed. In the United States, the State Department had a half-million-dollar reward for Arias' arrest. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he "conspired with numerous drug traffickers and Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) to transport multi-hundred-kilogram loads of cocaine originating from Colombia. The cocaine is then smuggled through Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala to Mexico, with the ultimate destination being the United States." So why did it take so long to catch him? A few reasons. Arias doesn't look like your typical cartel boss — the 41-year-old isn't flashy and doesn't live extravagantly. He has also remained mobile over the years, though he's spent most of his time near the Nicaraguan border. Police there have tried to take him out a few times, but he manages to get away, in part, because he has a small group of loyal but fierce men willing to protect him. Thankfully, on Friday, July 24, those men lost. they're keeping their eye on this guy, even in custody. According to the Tico Times, he "spent his first night in custody inside the maximum security wing of the Jorge Arturo Montero Castro penitentiary complex, better known as La Reforma, in San Rafael de Alajuela" after he was transferred "in an armored tactical vehicle escorted by members of the agency’s special tactical response unit." The Ministry of Justice and Peace even went as far as to suspend all general visits for the weekend to the prison, due to "security reasons." Along with Arias, Jonathan Pérez Méndez, who was also detained during the same raid, is in custody there. Both men are under 24-hour surveillance. Related: Costa Rica: 2026-07-25 'There Will Be No Elections.' Nicaragua's leader has radically resolved the issue of US influence Costa Rica: 2026-07-03 Man rescued from rubble of his workplace eight days after Venezuela earthquakes, death toll up to 2,595 Costa Rica: 2026-06-28 The Hague Tribunal for the United States: Whom the Americans Owe a Billion Dollars |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Clyde Thaviling6482 2026-07-26 12:20 |