OIJ

Paul Thomas Walter, 62, died of a heart attack on March 13 while hiking near Arenal Volcano. He was one of two U.S. hikers to die on trails in Costa Rica that day.

According to OIJ Director Francisco Segura Montero, 45 people have been shot dead by motorcyclists since the beginning of 2014. Honduras, Guatemala and several other Latin American countries prohibit passengers on motorcycles. But it's unclear whether the rule has reduced crime in those countries.

The Judicial Investigation Police said the man, identified as Costel Comana, hanged himself in the airplane bathroom. He was facing a corruption investigation in his native country, according to Romanian media.

After being missing for one month and likely kidnapped in Costa Rica, Canadian expat Ryan Piercy arrived safely at his home in western San José in a taxi at midnight on Saturday, a spokesman for the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) told The Tico Times.

Last year was a rough one for Costa Rica when it came to crime. No where was this more clear than the dramatic increases in homicides and burglaries of homes, according to the Judicial Investigation Police’s (OIJ) 2014 annual report released Monday. Homicides spiked across the country by 14.6 percent – more than any other crime – with 471 people killed during 2014.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Costa Rica 16th out of 180 countries surveyed in its annual press freedom index. The ranking is Costa Rica’s best showing since 2002, when the country was listed at 15th, despite police intercepting phone records from a journalist at the daily Diario Extra.

Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) on Tuesday raided 12 locations – including some Public Security Ministry units – as part of an ongoing gunrunning investigation allegedly connected to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, according to statements from the OIJ and MSP.

In January, the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) released store video of a 27-year-old woman artfully snatching a television and hiding it under her dress. The video from the OIJ Pococí delegation shows the shoplifter walking with ease with the boxed flat-screen TV lodged between her legs.

Agents from Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation Police, or OIJ, on Thursday morning arrested three employees of the BAC San José branch in Quepos, a port town next to the popular central Pacific tourist destination of Manuel Antonio, on suspicion of money laundering. A fourth suspect, believed to be the ringleader of the operation, is still at large, according to law enforcement sources.

Costa Rican National Police officers conducting a routine patrol at 3 a.m. on Monday detained a group of 23 undocumented migrants – 19 of them from Nepal – while attempting to enter the country from Panama.