The situation does not yet resemble 1930s Chicago during the Al Capone era, but Costa Rica is getting unwelcome publicity. Occasional killings as a result of random street crime sometimes happen. But a low-scale war for an unknown reason piles up the bodies and frightens residents and tourists alike.

Investigators seek key to reason for street war
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A hidden war is being waged on the streets of San José and its suburbs. The war is generating its casualties, but investigators are not sure of the identities of the combatants nor the reason.

The principal evidence are the drive-by shootings and the bodies of victims.

Another effort at an execution took place Wednesday in Escazú. A man from Honduras, Angel Efraín Leno Fernández, was driving to his home when gunman tried to kill him. This happened near the Trejos Montealegre shopping center in the vicinity of the Tony Roma Restaurant at midday.

The man took three bullets but survived, according to investigators. He had been in Costa Rica just a week, they said. The man was in Hospital CIMA with wounds to the chest, jaw and right arm, agents said.

Less than 24 hours before, a downtown store owner was the target when gunmen in a vehicle sprayed him with bullets. The man, Luis
Alberto Ayala Orellana, was not as lucky as Leno. The 35-year-old man who was on his way home was dead when police arrived at the scene just a few meters from the central post office.

Friday the bodies of two men showed up in a hollow in San Miguel de Santo Domingo de Heredia. They were killed execution style with a bullet neatly planted in the back of each man’s neck.

Tuesday investigators found their truck in Barrio Tournón and expected to find some evidence of drug trade within. The men, Jeremy Alverado Astúa, 24, and Jimmy Cavaría, 22, ran a small fruit delivery business. A search by investigators turned up no traces of drugs.

Some clues might come from the material left behind by Olesia Fedko, a 24-year-old Russian dancer. She turned up dead Jan. 29 near Playa Bandera, Parrita, also slain execution style. In her Sabana Sur apartment investigators found names, phone numbers, and photos of her enjoying herself with obviously wealthy individuals on yachts.

Another woman, who also may have been from
the same social circle, turned up dumped in the Pacific Ocean near the Osa Peninsula and tied to a piece of rail iron. Her skeletonized body is giving investigators a problem in making an identification. But residents there remember seeing a woman who might have been the victim as a passenger on a luxury yacht.

Then there is the Dec. 23 case of the murdered journalist. Ivannia Mora Rodríguez, 33, who was clearly a victim of some kind of execution. She was seated with a colleague in her vehicle at a traffic light in Curridabat when men on a motorcycle pulled alongside and shot her in the head.

A few days before in the same area two men in a car killed another motorist, also in Curridabat. That victim was Lineth Barrera Narváez, who died about 11 p.m. on the Autopista Florencio del Castillo.
The unprecedented bloodshed skews statistics and stresses investigators. And the main frustration is not knowing exactly what is going on.

Investigators would like to dismiss the killings as dispute between rival drug gangs, but many of the victims, such as the two young men killed in Heredia, do not have that kind of history. So police are looking for some other type of link,

... why are you apparently trying to scare people into not visiting Costa Rica? Do you have any comparative information for other major destinations around the world?