Costa Rica is a Central American country that has seen a sharp deterioration in security linked to the cocaine trade.
Drugs often travel through Costa Rica as a transit country, where local gangs contract to receive, store and forward them for international traffickers. Payments to subcontractors are often made in cocaine, breeding addicts and fuelling violence. The murder rate doubled in the decade to 2023.
"It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next morning it was someone else."