Costa Rica News – Well we are not in the prohibition in Costa Rica but bootlegging illegal liquor into the country is a popular trade.
Because of a change in strategy, according to police, the confiscation of smuggled liquor seems to have skyrocketed this year.
The amount being smuggled may not have changed but the amount discovered has.
In the first four months of 2016 more liquor was seized than in all of 2015, according to data from the Fiscal Control Police. In these four months 285,874 units were confiscated. The figure in 2015 for the whole year was 120,030.
Aside from tax evasion, smuggling liquor is problematic in terms of being a danger to human health, as it bypasses sanitary controls. People don’t actually know what they are consuming.
The new strategy goes after organized gangs in order to increase the volume of seizures.
If the cargo seized is worth over $5,000 the police send the case to judicial proceedings, whereas minor cases are dealt with in Customs.
