Q COSTARICA — Celso Gamboa, the extraditable, wanted by the United States for drug trafficking, asserted that the entry of shipments of illegal drugs into Costa Rica is easy and attributed it to weaknesses in the current government’s citizen security policy.
According to Gamboa, the transfer has been facilitated by decisions such as moving the National Coast Guard Academy from Quepos to Pococí and the transfer of the Coast Guard Special Operations Group (GOPES) from Drake Bay to Golfito.
The former judge and minister believes that strategic surveillance posts have been removed from the Executive and Judicial branches, which “facilitates the work of drug trafficking groups.”
This, he explained in an interview published Monday by Noticias Repretel.
The conversation took place in the Maximum Security section of La Reforma prison, where he remains in pretrial detention while his legal status is determined at the request of a Texas court.
“The Coast Guard has been bought off by drug traffickers. Didn’t they already remove the Coast Guard patrols here in the south? They haven’t realized what’s going on,” he said.
“Of course, it’s easy now (to smuggle drugs). Of course it’s easy. Of course it’s easy. Given all the shortcomings in public policy on citizen security that this very popular government has demonstrated, it has completely failed in terms of citizen security, and we can’t deny that, and absolutely no one can cover it up,” he emphasized.
In his response, he described current Security Minister Mario Zamora as a person of integrity, but criticized his failure to achieve the objectives set by the Ministry of Planning once he took office.
In October 2024, Zamora argued that the main motivation for the transfer was based on the Law Creating the National Coast Guard Service. He argued that Article 15 of that legislation establishes the creation of the academy, which must be located at the Ministry of Public Security in Murciélago, Guanacaste.
He communicated with Gerald Campos
On another topic addressed in Celso Gamboa’s interview with television news Channel 6, the extraditable also acknowledged that he has communicated with the current Minister of Justice, Gerald Campos.
“He is the only official who has had the courage to say he knows me, and yet he was wrong because he said he hadn’t spoken to me since he was Minister; he said it in the (Legislative) Assembly, and that’s where he was wrong,” the extraditable responded.
Gamboa recalled having been Campos’s professor at the judicial school. He was also his boss when he served as deputy prosecutor in Limón.
“And there was always a friendly relationship,” he told Noticias Repretel.
What he disagreed with was the suggestion that because of that relationship, the Minister of Justice “colluded with me,” he said. He called those criticisms “completely false.”
On July 21, El Observador published an article titled “Video | Minister of Justice assures that he “proactively” verified a comment sent by Celso Gamboa to his cell phone.”
In his statements, Minister Campos specified three occasions on which he had contact with the extraditable prisoner while he served as Minister of Justice, before Gamboa’s capture on June 23 of this year.
In one of them, Gamboa informed him—via WhatsApp—of the disruption to the water service for prisoners.
“He tells me: ‘I have this problem because they tell me they’re cutting off the water.’ ‘Okay,’ great, send me the complaint in writing, but I’m still proactive and verify with my people if this is true, because I’m interested in ensuring that no fundamental rights of those deprived of their liberty are violated,” Campos stated in a video recording.
Despite what Campos said, the Presidency of the Republic, in its weekly “Dato Mata Mentira” program during Wednesday press conferences, asserted that what was reported by this media outlet was false.
“They’re implying that Minister Gerald Campos is in communication with Gamboa. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the Presidential announcement reads. “You heard, my compatriot. Our motto is transparency, and this is absolutely false,” he added.
Thus, both Gamboa’s and the minister’s statements confirm that they maintained communication after May 8, 2022, and, as Campos’s statement suggests, he proactively verified an issue raised by the extraditable.
Two Other Occasions
In the same interview with Repretel News, Minister Campos said, without specifying the date, that Gamboa once contacted him via WhatsApp to make some requests related to inmates he defended in his practice as a lawyer.
On another occasion, he said he contacted him to inform him of the discontent of his mother, former Minister of Justice (2014-2017), Cecilia Sánchez. Campos said that this communication occurred between 2022 and 2023.
“On one occasion, he told me that his mother was very upset because we were saying it was his mother who named the penitentiary centers, Marcus Garvey, and all of them. So his mother wanted to let me know, and I told her: You have my phone number, tell her, give it to her, and have her file a complaint,” Campos stated in an interview with El Observador.
The request was never formalized, and Campos maintained that the change in the names of the penitentiary centers was made during Sánchez’s administration as Justice Minister.
Gamboa also reportedly contacted the minister to inform him that one of his clients was receiving death threats. Before that, Campos acknowledged that he had asked him to file a formal complaint.
“There were very few. Absolutely very few (conversations),” the Justice Minister emphasized.
Gamboa is wanted by the DEA after a grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas returned a federal indictment against him, accusing him of conspiring to manufacture and distribute cocaine since at least 2017, with the knowledge that it would be illegally imported into the US.
He is accused of collaborating with cartels such as the Gulf Cartel and the Gulf Clan of Colombia, coordinating routes through countries such as Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the US. He is currently in prison awaiting approval for his extradition.
Source link
Rico
