Costa Rica has signed a new security agreement with El Salvador, deepening a partnership that is reshaping how the country tackles the organised crime behind its rising homicide rate. President Laura Fernández signed the deal in San Salvador alongside her security and justice ministers and El Salvador's Gustavo Villatoro, with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at her side.
The two governments say the pact targets criminal groups that operate across borders, including drug trafficking networks. What it actually involves — intelligence sharing, joint investigations, police training or prison cooperation — hasn't been made public yet, so for now it reads more like a statement of intent than a concrete plan.
For anyone who knows Costa Rica as Central America's calmest corner, the backdrop matters. Homicides there have climbed in recent years, largely tied to disputes between gangs over drug markets and trafficking routes. Police have run several big operations this year against groups accused of trafficking, money laundering, cargo theft and contract killings.
Fernández, who has made security a signature issue, also toured CECOT — Bukele's enormous high-security prison — and praised the results of El Salvador's hard-line approach, which has driven homicides down sharply. She was careful to add that Costa Rica will keep its own legal system and human rights commitments. That's a notable caveat: more than 90,000 people have been arrested in El Salvador since a state of emergency began in 2022, and rights groups have documented arbitrary detentions, due process problems and deaths in custody.
The timing wasn't coincidental. Two days before the visit, Costa Rica opened its own maximum-security facility, CACCO, at the La Reforma complex in San Rafael de Alajuela. It holds around 5,100 inmates and was designed with Salvadoran technical help, aimed at drug traffickers, hitmen and crime bosses — with the explicit goal of stopping them running their organisations from behind bars. First transfers were expected later this month.
For travellers, the practical picture is unchanged for now: the crime surge is concentrated in specific urban areas and criminal-on-criminal disputes, not tourist zones, and Costa Rica remains one of the region's most visited countries. But watch this space. If Costa Rica adopts tougher policing and prison policies, it could sharpen security in the places visitors actually go — while the country tries to avoid the rights controversies that have shadowed El Salvador's model. Whether this deal produces real joint operations or just headlines will become clear over the coming months.
For travellers planning a trip, Costa Rica's appeal — rainforests, volcanoes, surf beaches and wildlife — is untouched by any of this. But it's a useful reminder to keep an eye on local advice, particularly around San José and port towns, as security policy shifts.
