Costa Rica Busts Major Cryptocurrency Laundering Ring

At least 36 people were arrested this Tuesday in Costa Rica in a vast police operation, including judges, lawyers, and two Spanish ringleaders of the gang dedicated to property theft and money laundering through cryptocurrencies, authorities reported.

The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ), Randall Zúñiga, said in a press conference that it is “a fairly consolidated criminal organization” that allegedly “was dedicated to stealing or robbing properties from people in the country and subsequently legitimizing them to third parties.”

According to the investigation, which began two and a half years ago, the network laundered capital from stolen properties through the purchase of cryptocurrencies. “In a single transaction on one particular day, they moved 13 million dollars in bitcoin,” Zúñiga commented.

The gang had the services of cryptocurrency experts, and its ringleaders were two Spanish citizens, aged 41 and 42, without regular migratory status in Costa Rica, he indicated.

During the operation, which involved about 500 OIJ agents, 47 raids were carried out throughout the country. At least 36 were arrested, and others are expected to be apprehended shortly.

Zúñiga specified that all those arrested are charged with crimes of “registry fraud, ideological falsehood, and money laundering.” “Lawyers, notaries, public officials, including five traffic officers, have been arrested,” he added.

The gang had as a “parallel activity” public transportation lines with private buses and used traffic agents to fine their competitors and “be able to take them out of circulation,” the official stated.

“It’s a criminal group that moved a lot of money,” Zúñiga noted. According to the OIJ, at least a hundred properties were stolen, although one of those arrested speaks of up to 300.