Costa Rican President-elect Laura Fernandez on Monday welcomed guidance from El Salvador’s gang-busting Nayib Bukele in her own country’s fight against a surge in drug-related violence.
Costa Rica continued a rightward lurch in Latin America through a landslide election victory for Fernandez on Sunday, and is a country better known for its idyllic beaches than its emerging role as a logistics hub for the global narco trade.
Long considered one of the safest countries in Latin America, Costa Rica, which has no military, ended 2025 with a rate of 17 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants — nearly triple the global average.
Fernandez has taken a page from Salvadoran President Bukele’s iron-fisted anti-gang approach. On the campaign trail, she pledged to crack down on organized crime and build a mega-prison modeled on Bukele’s CECOT “Terrorism Confinement Center.”
The facility will cost $35 million and house 5,000 of the most dangerous inmates.
Bukele, who many in Latin America consider a hero for his crackdown on gangs, is credited with restoring security to a nation traumatized for decades by horrific crime.
He declared a state of emergency that allows for warrantless arrests and rounded up over 90,000 people since March 2022, many of them innocent or minors, according to rights groups that have also denounced instances of torture.
On Monday, Fernandez told reporters that she spoke to Bukele, who was the first to congratulate her on her election win. He underlined “his commitment to continue helping,” particularly on the prison project, she said.
“We need to cut organized crime’s connection… with the outside world” which is why “this prison must become a reality,” Fernandez added.
