Caribbean and Central American Drug Trafficking

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned five Costa Rican nationals and five Costa Rican entities—among them the Magic Esthetic Salon beauty shop—for allegedly helping move tons of Colombian cocaine through Costa Rica to the United States and Europe. OFAC identifies Costa Rican national Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba, known as "Shock," and his brother Jordie Kevin "Noni" Picado Grijalba as leaders of the network, accusing them of importing cocaine largely by sea, warehousing it around the country and allying with other traffickers and hired hitmen. Shock was arrested in the U.K. in December 2024 and Noni in Costa Rica last August; both are being held pending U.S. extradition decisions. The sanctions, developed by a joint DHS–DEA–Costa Rica task force, freeze any assets the targets hold in the U.S. and bar American companies and citizens from doing business with them, while the Trump administration folds the move into a broader, controversial campaign of lethal maritime strikes on suspected drug boats and a CIA drone attack on a Venezuelan dock. The case underscores how U.S. counternarcotics policy now runs from financial blacklists and extradition requests to kinetic operations at sea, with officials publicly linking every part of the supply chain—from shippers to money launderers—to U.S. overdose deaths.