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Cover of COSTA RICA - NO ARMY ON THE COCAINE ROAD

COSTA RICA - NO ARMY ON THE COCAINE ROAD

By Mariela Brenes · 4 parts · 14 h 4 min · English

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Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and promised never to hand its citizens to a foreign court. That made it Central America's peaceful exception, and a convenient address: for a fugitive American financier, for lenders paying retirees three percent a month, for a digital currency American prosecutors called a black-market bank, for offshore sportsbooks, and for cocaine moving north and to Europe. Two former presidents were jailed in 2004; a police director was convicted of escorting cocaine; in 2026 a former security minister and magistrate was among the first Costa Ricans ever extradited. Covers Celso Gamboa and the Texas case against him, Rodrigo Chaves and the BCIE accusation, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier and the Caja-Fischel loan, Arthur Budovsky and Liberty Reserve, and Gilbert Bell Fernández and the US Treasury.

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  1. Part 01

    3:43:07

  2. Part 02

    3:20:29

  3. Part 03

    3:24:31

  4. Part 04

    3:36:16

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