Costa Rica locks up its first 123 inmates in a new 5,100-bed mega-jail modelled on El Salvador's notorious CECOT

The $35 million fortress, called the High-Containment Centre Against Organised Crime (CACCO), was built in just nine months on the outskirts of San José and is designed to house cartel leaders, hitmen and gang figures who have continued running criminal enterprises from inside overcrowded existing jails. Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar declared it "a monument to national security" and a "forceful response to organised crime." President Laura Fernández used the ribbon-cutting ceremony to warn the country's most dangerous criminals they are first on the transfer list.

Costa Rica's current jails are nearly 30 percent overpopulated, with OIJ data showing roughly 70 percent of record 2023 homicides were linked to rival drug gangs.

CACCO's director, Belarmino García, has described El Salvador's CECOT — the model for the new prison — as "a cemetery of living men."

The first 123 inmates arrived in orange jumpsuits with shaved heads, hands clasped behind their necks — a deliberate echo of CECOT's infamous intake photographs.