Home › Forums › Costa Rica Living Forum › Please tell your Costa Rican Crime story
- This topic has 1 reply, 22 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 6 months ago by sjm1580.
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May 23, 2008 at 10:34 am #190834*LotusMember
What is the point of this? Yes crime crime is everywhere we are adults, most a bit traveled yes we know there is crime in Costa Rica!!!! I could post a 100 scary threads about crime in my city, NYC that would make your head spin, scare the hell out of you!!! Let me tell you first hand Jaco has actually gotten better! It was always an unsavory place but now they actually are fighting back, with the help of big development companies that want to protect there investment. Most of the crime in Jaco happens in the wee hours of the morning when the streets are quiet and men are trolling for hookers or people buying drugs. You are safe as anywhere in the daytime or prime-time evening as the place is pretty jammed. I did have a friend robbed at gun point in Jaco, but here’s the rest of the story; He is Argentine so speaks perfect Spanish met a girl in a club, later saw her on the street (3am) she said her friend could sell him some pot, he went pulls out a $100 dollar bill “friend” pulls out a gun, goodbye $100 dollars….oh yeah the banditos were NOT Ticos but from another Latin American country. Yes there is crime but stop making it sound like a war-zone because it is not, but it is a third world developing country, developing being the key word here. Will you crime mongers only be happy when sprite breaks down at your feet and admits the country is going to hell in a hand basket, crime is rampant and he trembles as he walks through the streets of Naranjo…sheesh! As for us we have no personal crime story to report in over 6 years of visiting Costa Rica, that said be careful because there is crime in Costa Rica….
May 23, 2008 at 11:15 am #190835MinuitMemberHola, here is my story. Because my fridge is not so big, and I often have much company, I leave a little fridge connected outside the house on the terrace always filled with beer and pops.
Once I left for a few days, and when I came back there were 4 imperial missing in the fridge. I was very disappointed because I had much pride thinking I could leave it outside and no one would dare take anything….until the day after, my gardener came to my place with a 6 pack to replace the 4 missing beers and told me he had taken them with a friend while he was cleaning the garden.
I know it can happen, and I think a couple of beers are not too expensive to test my neighbourhood. The day something happens, I will change my way of seeing things.
I would not like to live in a place where I have to chain my beach chairs, my patio furniture, where I have to put bars on the windows, where I have to watch my every steps, that is why I am happy where I am right now. If or when it changes, it will always be time to see my options…
Jo
May 23, 2008 at 12:11 pm #190836sjm1580MemberI have received my answer from Lotus, Sprite and others that there is not a lot of crime in Costa Rica. I am now ready to invest my hard earned money in real estate in Costa Rica. I like many others “Love Costa Rica” and have now gotten enough assurances from subscribers that there is not a crime problem in Costa Rica (except for the stolen sock and Imperials) that I am ready to take the plunge.
Thank you for your input.
May 23, 2008 at 1:19 pm #190837*LotusMemberJust don’t invest your hard earned money along with all the other suckers sinking billions into NYC real estate. I can assure you there is a major crime problem here, and if you don’t believe me ask a cop or read the papers.
May 23, 2008 at 2:55 pm #190838jneimanMemberThere’s a saying here:
“If you want to be a millionaire in Costa Rica, come down with $10 million.”
This is a little off-topic but here’s my own catchphrase for Hotel Del Rey (someone put this on a t-shirt already):
-Hotel Del Rey-
“Where it smells like the ocean, but without the view”May 23, 2008 at 6:47 pm #190839spriteMemberIf someone were to put up a topic such as “Please tell your Costa Rican story of how friendly and wonderful Ticos have been in a moment of need”, I’ll bet that topic would have a much longer thread than this one.
Of course, this is the “We LOVE Costa Rica” site, not the “We hate Costa Rica” site.
May 23, 2008 at 7:03 pm #190840sjm1580MemberSprite,
Why don’t you start your own Why I Love Costa Rica thread, and you and all your buddies can sit in Chicago and stroke yourselves about your love of the Tropics. You might get a lot of attention that way (“a much longer thread”).
May 23, 2008 at 8:38 pm #190841TexasMemberI agree with you! Happy Memorial Day to US folks & everyone.
May 24, 2008 at 12:25 am #190842sumaSalMemberEverybody knows that crime is becoming a (big) problem in Costa Rica, but that is bad news for -for example- the real estate business.
So better not talk too much about it! OK ?
May 24, 2008 at 12:31 am #190843spriteMembersjm,
I am already living in the sub tropics and do not care for heat and humidity or freezing Chicago weather.. Nor am I interested in “attention” or boring stroke sessions. I prefer a conversation with opposing views so don’t go away. There may be other topics we can disagree on later. :-}
Costa Rica is a big little country and just chock full of interesting anomalies.May 24, 2008 at 2:03 am #190844AndrewKeymasterClearly “everybody” does not know sumaSAL
Please do share your knowledge, facts and figures with us…
Are you speaking about the entire country?
What sort of crime are you referring to?
How “big” is the problem?
How is this affecting us? The typical expat that might want to live here…
Would love to know…
I had a lovely dinner this evening with a group of Venezuelans who have travelled extensively, they told me that “the more you travel throughout Central and Latin America, the more you will love Costa Rica.”
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comMay 24, 2008 at 1:36 pm #190845spriteMemberEvery single sales person I talk to in my industry (freight forwarding) that has traveled extensively throughout South and Central America tells me the same thing; That the more they see of the countries down there, the more they appreciate Costa Rica. And I have been surprised by how many of them have serious thought about retiring there.
May 24, 2008 at 2:32 pm #190846AndrewKeymasterI think what we fail to remember in the “first world” is that it is rapidly becoming more like the “third world.” I won’t get into ‘why’ I believe that is happening but it is not by accident.
Poverty and homelessness is increasing, longevity is decreasing and based on what we are seeing in both the US and Europe, crime in all it’s forms will probably increase dramatically over the next few decades.
And while many third world immigrants ‘imagine’ that they will be better off fleeing to the US and in Europe, millions of people in the US, the UK and Europe who do have money are retiring abroad to less developed countries.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comMay 24, 2008 at 3:20 pm #190847AndrewKeymasterDo you know the Costa Rica crime story that everybody’s talking about this weekend?
A 48 year old man living in a heavily fortified home in San Vincente de Moravia in San Jose with 19 feet high walls and numerous security cameras climbs onto the roof of his own home (while his wife and two children aged 5 and 14 remain inside) and using a powerful rifle, shoots off a few rounds…
When he did this he ‘accidentally’ killed a 28 year old Costa Rican doctor (a father of a three year old girl) while he was standing in the kitchen of his girlfriend’s home.
They had never met and did not know each other.
Franz Zamora who lives nearby said that in September he did the same thing and bullets flew into his home but luckily nobody was hurt.
The 48 year old man who “suffers from serious mental problems” had a M16 AR 15 which is a weapon prohibited by Costa Rica law, he also had a 38 caliber revolver as well as a 9mm pistol. None of which he was legally allowed to have as a tourist in Costa Rica.
Who are we talking about?
The 48 year old man is one Frederick Marlon Kelch from New York, USA. A man with a record of previous assaults and armed robbery, who had also been investigated in the US for drug possession and owning illegal weapons.
See more at [ http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2008/mayo/24/sucesos1549398.html ]
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comMay 24, 2008 at 4:35 pm #190848maravillaMemberI’d like to know WHICH (not IF) legal drugs he was taking. This sounds so much like many of the incidents in the States where the perp was legally medicated.
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