Costa Rica captures drug lord Alejandro Arias Monge “Diablo”

Costa Rican authorities arrested Alejandro Arias Monge, known as “Diablo”, the country’s most‑wanted fugitive and a U.S.‑listed drug trafficker, during a high‑risk operation in Río Frío, Heredia. The raid injured eight OIJ agents, killed a suspected criminal and seized firearms, drones and other equipment. The United States had offered a $500,000 bounty for his capture.

Following the arrest, the Ministry of Justice requested that hearings for Arias Monge and his associate Jonathan Pérez Méndez, alias “Tan”, be conducted virtually for security reasons, but the Judicial Power scheduled a mandatory in‑person hearing on 27 July 2026 in San José’s First Circuit Court. The Public Prosecutor’s Office plans to seek three months of preventive detention for “Diablo” and five months for “Tan”. In parallel, security forces located Arias Monge’s daughter, Arias Fonseca, near La Reforma prison and briefly detained her while investigating a possible weapons‑carrying violation.

The capture marks a major blow to a transnational criminal organization linked to hundreds of murders and large‑scale drug trafficking from Colombia to the United States.