Police seize five capybaras and crack cocaine after car chase
Costa Rican police seized five capybaras, crack cocaine and marijuana after chasing down a fleeing vehicle on a highway along the Central American country's Pacific coast on Thursday.
The large rodents are a semi-aquatic South American relative of the guinea pig and happen to be having a moment on social platforms. But they are not native to Costa Rica, and the Public Security Ministry said Thursday that possessing, transporting or trafficking them is illegal.
The agency said it had never recorded another seizure of the animals.
Two men in the vehicle, who both had criminal records, were arrested.
"The police action was important and shows the concurrence where the drug world coincides with the introduction of non-native species," Security Minister Mario Zamora said.
The capybaras were turned over to the National System of Conservation Areas to be evaluated by veterinarians.
As a non-native species they can't be released in Costa Rica so they will be taken to a refuge for environmental and conservation education programs.
Earlier this year Peruvian police arrested a suspected drug dealer by disguising himself as a cuddly capybara.
A day before Valentine's Day, an officer disguised himself as a stuffed capybara and descended on a street in the capital, accompanied by two policewomen carrying "gifts." In Peru, it is common for people to dress as teddy bears and other characters to deliver gifts on special dates.
Police said the operation lured the suspect out of his house, where he was quickly apprehended.
Col. Pedro Rojas, Chief of the 'Green Squadron' division of Peru's Police, which carried out the operation, said officers later searched the house and found a "large quantity" of cocaine as well as marijuana.
This operation was not the first in which officers from the squadron disguised themselves to arrest suspected drug dealers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Top Salvadoran ex-military officers sentenced for wartime killing of Dutch journalists
SAN SALVADOR, June 4 (Reuters) - A jury in El Salvador sentenced three retired high-ranking military officers to 15 years in prison for the murder of four Dutch journalists in 1982, one of the highest profile cases of the Central American nation's civil war. The three were charged on Tuesday for the killings of journalists Koos Joster, Jan Kuiper Joop, Johannes Jan Wilemsen and Hans ter Laag, who were reporting for IKON Television during a 1982 military ambush on a group of former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas - some of whom were armed. A U.N. truth commission 11 years later found the ambush was "deliberately planned to surprise and kill the journalists." The trial was closed and details about the defendants' pleas and arguments were not made public. El Salvador's civil war stretched from 1980 to 1992, pitting leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army and leaving 75,000 people dead and 8,000 more missing. Former Defense Minister General Jose Guillermo Garcia was sentenced by a jury in the northern town of Chalatenango, alongside two colonels: former Treasury Police chief Francisco Moran and former infantry brigade commander Mario Reyes. All three - respectively aged 91, 93 and 85 - were sentenced in absentia. Garcia and Moran are in hospital under custody and Reyes currently lives in the United States though El Salvador is in the process of seeking his return. "Truth and justice have prevailed, we have won," Oscar Perez, a representative of the Comunicandonos Foundation that represents some of the relatives, told reporters. "The victims are the focus now; not the perpetrators." Prosecutors had requested the 15-year sentence, taking into account the military officers' age and health conditions. The jury also issued a civil condemnation to the Salvadoran state over the delay in delivering justice, a symbolic measure that obliges the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Nayib Bukele, to publicly ask for forgiveness from the victims' families.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Three Salvadorian ex-military convicted of 1982 killings of Dutch reporters
A former defense minister of El Salvador and two retired colonels have been convicted of the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists during the country's civil war, a lawyer for families of the deceased said. A five-member jury sentenced the defendants, now in their 80s or 90s, to 15 years in prison after an 11-hour session on the first day of the trial on Tuesday. In a crime that shocked the world, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemsen were killed while filming a television documentary. More than 75,000 people were killed in El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war pitting the US-backed military against leftist guerrillas. The Dutch reporters worked for IKON TV, a Dutch channel founded by several churches. The accused are General Jose Guillermo García, 91, former police colonel Francisco Antonio Morán, 93, and ex-infantry brigade commander Mario Reyes Mena, 85. None of them were in court for the trial, which was conducted with press and held in the northern city of Chalatenango. 'The fight against impunity took a long time, but it was won,' the Dutch ambassador for all of Central America, Arjen van den Berg, said outside the courthouse. In 1993, a UN-sponsored Truth Commission found the journalists had walked into an ambush planned by Reyes, who lives in the United States, and with the knowledge of other officers. The Salvadoran supreme court approved an extradition request for Reyes in March, but there has been no progress so far. García and Morán are under police surveillance in a private hospital in San Salvador. The defendants had faced up to 30 years in prison but got less time because of their age and ill health, the lawyer Cruz said. The NGOs Fundación Comunicándonos and the Salvadoran Association for Human Rights hailed the trial as a 'decisive step' in the search for truth and justice. 'We trust that this trial sets a historic precedent in the fight against impunity,' they said in a joint statement. The case remained unresolved for decades after the presiding judge received threats in 1988, prompting her to seek refuge in Canada. It was reopened in 2018 after the supreme court declared an amnesty law for civil war crimes unconstitutional, but relatives of the victims still had to wait years for the main hearing. Evidence such as a statement from a former US military attache and a military expert's report 'directly points' to the defendants' responsibility, said lawyer Pedro Cruz, who represents the victims' families. Garcáa led the Armed Forces from 1979 to 1983, when the worst massacres perpetrated by the military took place.
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Shocking moment four-ton elephant gets stuck in supermarket... and somehow only causes £22.70 damage
An elephant has run rampant in a Thai supermarket, but somehow caused just £22.70 in damages. Footage from the store in the north-eastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima on Monday afternoon showed the 25-year-old elephant named Plai Biang Lek tucking into rice cakes and chicken eggs after wandering in. The enormous mammal spent around 10 minutes meandering through the store, before getting wedged in the ceiling. Somehow, shopkeeper Khamploy Gakaew managed to convince the animal to leave the store. And after totting up the total damage caused, the final bill came to just 1,000 baht (£22.70). Gakaew said: 'This was the first time an elephant had visited the store. I hope he doesn't come back. I was worried about the damage he could cause. 'He ate sweet, crispy rice cakes and chicken eggs before walking out. I was surprised to see him eating sweet food, as elephants usually search for something salty. 'We see elephants occasionally, and they will bother street food vendors for food. But this was unusual.' Following his impromptu shopping trip, Plai Biang Lek was escorted back to woodland, away from any danger, by wildlife rangers who said they were monitoring him to make sure he didn't come back. The size of the meal he consumed was remarkable, given that elephants need to eat up to 150kg of food per day – the equivalent of 375 tins of baked beans - to stay alive. Thai conservationists said that wild elephants have started to develop a taste for human food, and are starting to rummage through homes and vehicles for high-calorie snacks instead of the bland leaves they normally eat in woodland. Though this docile creature left the store having caused little harm, the same cannot be said for all elephants. Earlier this year, a Spanish tourist died after an elephant forcefully knocked her over with its trunk at a popular animal sanctuary in Thailand. Blanca Ojanguren Garcia, 22, from Valladolid, was bathing an elephant in January at the Koh Yao sanctuary on the Thai island of Yao Yai when the animal suddenly caused her the fatal blow. Garcia, a Law and International Relations student, was rushed to a nearby hospital where she later died. According to Spanish national paper El Pais the incident was confirmed by local police and the elephant care centre. Reports had previously claimed the university student had been gored by the elephant, but trusted Spanish news agency EFE verified that this was not the case. The incident was confirmed by local police and the sanctuary, which is currently closed as a result of the tragic accident. Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that there were around 18 people present at the time of the incident, including Garcia's boyfriend. No one else was reportedly injured.
