Because of factors such as business closures and lack of opportunities, it is estimated that criminal activity costs Honduras and El Salvador 16% of GDP, and in the case of Guatemala, its losses could amount to 7% of its production.
In Central America, the human costs of crime remain one of the highest in the world. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—referred to as the Northern Triangle— account for about four-and-a-half percent of homicides worldwide despite only having about one-half-percent of the world's population.
The bill being discussed in Costa Rica basically seeks to extinguish the assets of organized crime, but there are those who claim that as proposed, it puts at risk the presumption of innocence of individuals.
The extinction of domain is a concept that in practice refers to seizing or confiscating assets linked to criminal activities, and then transferring them in favor of the State.
A report by InSight Crime highlights the homicide rate registered in Costa Rica in 2017, which was 12.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest number in its history.
The report indicates that Costa Rica is a country that has traditionally been considered "peaceful," and in respect to the escalation of the homicide rate, an increase that local authorities attribute to organized crime, the report indicates that "... lack of retrospective and a vague methodology is weakening the authorities' attempts to attribute blame to organized crime."
Diagram showing the people and companies identified by actions related to money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury´s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
It has been announced that deposits up to $9,200 (L200,000) per person will be returned, and then payments to employees, depositors and others, noting that "... there are sufficient resources to address them all."
The cause is the inclusion of the institution in the list of the U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the freezing of its assets abroad.
Drug trafficking and gangs are the main factors responsible for intentional murders in the most violent countries in the world: Honduras, Belize, El Salvador and Guatemala.
According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at the United Nations (UNODC), in 2012 Honduras recorded 90.4 killings per 100,000 inhabitants.
In Belize, the homicide rate is 44.7 per 100 thousand inhabitants, in El Salvador it is 41.2, and in Guatemala is 39.9.
World Bank statistics show that every day, about $1.3 billion are paid in bribes related to state contracts.
The figures were mentioned by Michael Kramer, a consultant at the entity, who is taking part in the forum "Preventing and combating corruption and collusion in public procurements", taking place in Panama.
"... In addition to cash bribes for the award of contracts in recent years the practice has spread to awarding projects to companies created by officials," reported Prensa.com. Sometimes they are consultancies or suppliers that have no references or physical offices.
The phenomenon affects much of Latin America, whose countries spend on average 8% of their GDP on security costs.
That was the conclusion reached during the forum "Connecting businesses as partners for prosperity with security in the Americas", organized by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the private sector, under the framework of the Guatemala Investment Summit.
Criminal activities in Central America cause a loss of $900 million for regional trade, said the Federation of the Chambers of Commerce of Central America.
In El Salvador, $600 million was lost due to armed robberies, and in Honduras, the figure is $150 million a year, reported merchants from the isthmus .
Among the criminal activities that affect trade are "the constant assaults suffered by vehicles carrying loads and goods through the region", reported an article in Pueblo en Línea, the Spanish version of The People's Daily, the official Chinese newspaper.
While other Central American countries are preparing taxes to combat insecurity, Nicaragua declares that it is not an appropriate option.
The president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, proposed to his peers in the isthmus region the creation of specific tax to combat organized crime and the violence it generates.
Although the proposal didn’t prosper at the meeting of the Council of Finance Ministers and Central Finance, both Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras are working on the implementation of a national tax for their own security plans.
The lack of government capacity and economic power disadvantage compared to the drug industry, has lead to an increase in violence and corruption.
"Using systematic violence and corruption, intimidation and extortion of public officials, the wealthy and powerful criminal groups have been able to weaken police and judicial systems. They often use violence to threaten or punish anonymous complainants.
The tourism sector is one of the most sensitive regarding security, so taking care of it is a priority.
The crime and violence problem in Central America permeates Central American Travel Market 2010, encouraging initiatives such as regional approval of specialized police forces dedicated to the protection of tourism.
As outlined in an article in Prensa.com, Napoleon Duarte, Minister of Tourism of El Salvador, said the subject will be the starting point for the Central American Tourism Council (CCT), and that "the work is to create a communication system between tourist police to enable them to connect, in addition to redesigning policies in order to strengthen crime prevention."
New regulations in El Salvador to tackle gang violence foster the development of regional measures to control and proscribe local gangs.
In order to prevent gang members from fleeing the country to avoid jail, especially to Guatemala and Honduras, these countries has activated extra security measures at their borders.
President Funes asked Guatemala and Honduras to join the fight against organized crime, which has been growing as drugs cartels associate with local gangs.
At the summit of the Central American Integration System, authorities agreed to relaunch the regional integration process, centering it on combating crime and violence.
The first chapter of the Action Plan signed by Central American presidents is called “Democratic Security” and foresees meetings among all the sectors related to security and defense in the region for the second half of 2010, as well as obtaining the necessary human, financial and technological resources to develop a security strategy in Central America.
Paying for armed custody, satellite tracking and “tolls” to armed gangs are some of the additional costs that must be paid when transporting goods in Central America.
Some transportation companies state that $14.000 must be paid each year in security related costs for a single truck carrying goods within the Central American region.
An executive from a Costa Rican company with regional operations confirmed that they pay an $80 toll to Guatemalan gangs to ensure safe circulation within that country’s capital city.