Conversing on Climate Change: Costa Rican Ex-President José María Figueres is participating in a forum being held in Madrid called “Global Leadership for Climate Action, aimed at mobilizing political will to curb global warming. Behind him is Korean Prime Minister Hong Koo Lee.

U.S. travelers to Costa Rica now have a wider selection of flights thanks to two airlines, Frontier and Spirit, recently creating new routes here.

Free Storytelling Night
“When Stories Grow Up,” written by Evelyn Ugalde and performed by Ana Coralia Férnandez, Kattia Múñoz and Ana María Amador, 7 p.m., Casa de la Cultura Popular, San José, 300 m. north and 300 m. east of Santa Teresita Church. Info: 224-0010.

4th Open Water Swimming Competition
7 km, 3 km, 1 km, today through Sunday, registration deadline today. Info: www.aguasabiertas.com, 248-2323.

Jazz and Blues
With D.J. Darren, Chicharronera Rancho Alegre, San José, Calle 11, Ave. 1 and 3.

By Blake Schmidt
Tico Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net

After two months of investigation, Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) officials seized 2.2 metric tons of cocaine and arrested eight alleged members of a Mexican-headed drug-trafficking ring they believe was in the process of transporting the drugs through San José to the United States.

“One can assume that Costa Rica is actually a drug storage point” for traffickers, said OIJ Assistant Director Francisco Segura during a press conference yesterday announcing the bust, the second biggest in Costa Rica this year.

Raids on the network's storage rooms and houses in the western suburbs of Pavas and Rohmorser and in Heredia, north of San José, as well as a microbus that was loaded with 640 kilos of cocaine, yielded an AK-47 rifle, an unspecified amount of cash, two automobiles and two trucks.

Segura said the group was planning to ship these drugs to the United States by hiding them in the ceiling of a semi-truck on the next leg of the smuggling route. Authorities believe the group also had contacts in El Salvador and Mexico who were going to help smuggle the cocaine north.

Seven of those arrested are Mexican citizens, one of whom is a minor, and the other suspect arrested is Colombian. Segura said authorities are investigating whether the ring has contacts with any Mexican or Colombian drug cartels.

The arrests were made in an operation Tuesday, the day after an unrelated case in which police arrested four fishermen and seized one metric ton of cocaine from a fishing boat off the southern Pacific coast.

By Blake Schmidt
Tico Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net

The Secretary General of the National Unity Party (PUN) was shot three times Tuesday afternoon, once in the head, at his law firm in the southern San José suburb of Zapote in an attack authorities are saying looks like a hit.

Hernán Zamora, who was Housing Vice-Minister during the presidency of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (1998-2002), was at work when three men who had scheduled an appointment with him entered his office and opened fire, nailing him first in the arm, then in the ear and finally in the shoulder. Zamora was hauled off by emergency responders to nearby Calderon Guardia Hospital, where authorities said he is in stable condition.

"It was really a miracle," PUN legislator José Echandi commented to The Tico Times on Zamora's survival. 

After the suspects opened fire, another partner in Zamora's firm pulled out a weapon and fired back at the three suspects, piercing one of them in the knee. The two other suspects escaped and took off in two cars. A fourth suspect had been waiting in one of these cars during the shooting. Police detained the injured suspect, whose last name is Ramírez and who has a criminal history.

“The suspects didn't come to assault or rob, the idea was to kill,” said Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) Assistant Director Francisco Segura in a press conference Wednesday morning.

He said judging by the fact that the crime appeared to be premeditated and organized, and by how quickly it occurred, it appears to have been a gun-for-hire-style crime. However, Segura said authorities are still investigating whether or not the suspects were paid and trying to find a motive.

Though authorities wouldn't confirm it, Echandi told The Tico Times that 22-year-old Ramírez told authorities he was paid to do the job. Ramírez has been arrested as many as 16 times for charges including robbery, according to Segura.

The day before the shooting, a person police believe to have been one of the suspects called to make a 4 p.m. appointment with Zamora. The suspects showed up at the office at 4:40 p.m.

U.S. travelers to Costa Rica now have a wider selection of flights thanks to two airlines, Frontier and Spirit, recently creating new routes here.

Frontier Airlines has announced it will begin flying from the U.S. city of Denver, Colorado, to Costa Rica four times a week beginning Nov. 30.

The flights from Denver to Juan Santamaría International Airport, just northwest of San José, and from this airport back to Denver will be offered Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, according to the airline's Web site. Introductory fares begin at $149 each way, not including taxes and fees.

The airline is also offering connecting flights to Denver from U.S. cities including Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, San Diego and Salt Lake City.

Additionally, Civil Aviation has given the go ahead to Spirit Airlines to open a route between the U.S. city of Los Angeles and San José, according to a statement from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT).

This was the final step necessary for this budget airline to begin flying here three times a week. It has yet to announce the date it plans to launch this new route, reported the wire service ACAN-EFE.

Spirit began flying to Costa Rica from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the end of April, and the success of this flight peaked its interest in opening more routes here, the statement said.

Tourism Minister Carlos Benavides said he is pleased with this new flight, which jives with the ministry's “open skies” policy it has been pushing since the beginning of this year to bring more flights to Costa Rica.