The Costa Rica News (TCRN) – Costa Rica President, Laura Chinchilla, said this week that the country is “cleaning house” of organized crime and racketeering and said that they are “hopefully” other countries in the region “dare” to do the same.
Chinchilla made those statements to reporters to note the recent dismantling of a network of organ trafficking, and refer to the famous case of laundering Liberty Reserve signature.
“We performed two major operations… because our system is working, we are cleaning the house, and hopefully some other nations around us dare to do the same,” said the president.
Costa Rican judicial officials said the arrest of state chief of nephrology at Calderon Guardia Hospital, identified with the surnames Mora Palma on suspicion of integrating the “core” of an organization dedicated to organ trafficking with links to Israel and Eastern Europe East.
According to the attorney general, Jorge Chavarria, the doctor was in charge of checking that the donors were compatible with Israelis who needed a transplant, and also practiced surgery in a private clinic in Costa Rica.
Research indicates that the donors were offered sums of up to $ 20,000 in exchange for their body parts and some of them traveled to Israel for a transplant.
Chinchilla said that this case arose from a complaint filed by the Ministry of Health a few weeks ago and that has nothing to do with a story of international media on the subject.
On May 27 the Mexican newspaper El Universal, in a report signed by a correspondent in Costa Rica, reported two cases of people who sold kidneys for $ 6,000 two Israelis and supposedly underwent transplants in San Jose.
Costa Rican President said the issue of organ trafficking is another example of organized crime that the government is not willing to let go unpunished.
In the case of Liberty Reserve Company, which was based in Costa Rica and is charged U.S. of laundering at least 6.000 million. “The case (Liberty Reserve) starts early through efforts of the financial system and financial intelligence Costa Ricans, who brought out a new form of money laundering through the use of electronic media,” said the president.
Chinchilla said Costa Rica was the one that initiated the investigation against Liberty Reserve in 2009 and then added the United States to perform the operation of dismantling the laundering network with other countries.
U.S. federal authorities to Liberty Reserve qualify as the “reference bank of the criminal world,” which facilitated the laundering of 6,000 million through its virtual currency system.
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose Costa Rica
