Nicaraguan opposition legislators are using their command of the budget as ammo in an attempt to shoot down President Daniel Ortega's attempt to establish controversial neighborhood groups to be overseen by himself.

“The Nutcracker”
Performed by the Costa Rican Youth Ballet and Cuban dancers Rómel Frómeta, Elier Bourzac and Ernesto Fariñas, tonight through Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m., 5 p.m., National Theater.

National Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Choir in Concert
Performing Handel's Messiah, tonight, 7:30 p.m., San Ramón Church; tomorrow, 7:30 p.m., Alajuela Cathedral; Friday, 7:30 p.m., Sendero de Luz Church, Gravilias, Desamparados, 240-0333.

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

The price thousands of South Americans paid to be smuggled across borders, hidden in homes and transported clandestinely in trucks to the United States: $7,000. Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) Director Jorge Rojas yesterday revealed details of a human smuggling ring spanning from South America to the United States that police broke up by raiding nine homes and hotels and arresting seven people.

People in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru paid $7,000 to make this illegal journey to the United States, and the Costa Rican branch of the operation earned $1,700 per person, Rojas said.

“We're talking about a very significant amount of money,” he said, explaining that police believe the operation ran about 30 people through Costa Rica per week.

Those originating in Bolivia flew to Juan Santamaría International Airport, just outside San José, where they were able to enter the country legally on tourist visas. Those coming from Peru and Ecuador – countries from which special visas are required – instead traveled by land through Panama and were smuggled into Costa Rica at the Paso Canoas border crossing.

They all met up in San José, where they were housed overnight in homes and hotels, Rojas said. The owner of one of these homes who is believed to be the head of the Costa Rican operation, a woman identified by the last name Pineda, was arrested yesterday in the northern suburb of Tibás.

Two others, women identified as Mena, a Nicaraguan, and Valle, a Costa Rican, were also arrested there, and a man, identified as Chávez, was arrested in San José.

Police believe the South Americans were driven in trucks from San José to the northwestern Guanacaste province, where they were hidden in houses until they were smuggled across the Peñas Blancas border crossing into Nicaragua.

Two accused of aiding in the smuggling from Guanacaste were arrested yesterday, a man identified as Rivas in the town of La Cruz and a woman identified as Ruiz in nearby Liberia. In the Southern Zone's Ciudad Neilly, police took in a man identified as Rugama. All face international human trafficking charges.

The OIJ had been investigating this case for about one year in conjunction with U.S. and South and Central American authorities, Rojas said. Police believe similar smuggling networks were operating in other Central American and South American countries to move the South Americans north to the United States.

Parts of the northern suburb of Tibás will be without electricity for much of tomorrow as the National Power and Light Company (CNFL) does “preventive maintenance,” according to an ad the company placed in the daily La Nación.

The area to be in the dark spans from the PriceSmart in Llorente de Tibás to the Bomba Total, near Los Colegios, and from the Auto Mercado to the area near the National Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) tanks.

The outage is scheduled to last from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Homes and businesses outside these areas could also experience brief interruptions in service.

For more information, call 295-1160 or visit www.cnfl.go.cr.

-Tico Times

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