Costa Rica Unveils USD25M-Saving Mega-Prison Modeled on CECOT
(MENAFN) Costa Rica opened a 5,100-bed maximum-security prison on Wednesday, a facility patterned on El Salvador’s controversial Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and central to a hardening campaign against organized crime.
President Laura Fernandez Delgado inaugurated the High Containment Center for Organized Crime (CACCO), built to house the country’s most dangerous criminals. The complex sits beside La Reforma prison, roughly 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the capital. Authorities expect it to receive its first inmates by the end of October.
“I am certain that today we are marking a before and after in prison security and national security as a whole,” Fernandez said at a news conference during the inauguration.
“From this day forward, our country will be a global benchmark for prison security,” she added.
The design borrows from CECOT, the sprawling lockup created under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as the centerpiece of his government’s offensive against organized crime.
Fernandez, who assumed office earlier this year, has vowed to carry on the security agenda of her predecessor, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, a vocal admirer of Bukele’s approach. In 2025, Chaves announced that Costa Rica would receive the designs, blueprints and construction methods behind El Salvador’s prisons, a partnership he said would cut about $25 million from construction costs.
El Salvador’s prison system, however, has drawn sustained international scrutiny over allegations of torture and other grave human rights abuses. In a 2025 report, Human Rights Watch documented accounts of repeated beatings, torture and sexual violence involving 252 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
President Laura Fernandez Delgado inaugurated the High Containment Center for Organized Crime (CACCO), built to house the country’s most dangerous criminals. The complex sits beside La Reforma prison, roughly 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the capital. Authorities expect it to receive its first inmates by the end of October.
“I am certain that today we are marking a before and after in prison security and national security as a whole,” Fernandez said at a news conference during the inauguration.
“From this day forward, our country will be a global benchmark for prison security,” she added.
The design borrows from CECOT, the sprawling lockup created under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as the centerpiece of his government’s offensive against organized crime.
Fernandez, who assumed office earlier this year, has vowed to carry on the security agenda of her predecessor, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, a vocal admirer of Bukele’s approach. In 2025, Chaves announced that Costa Rica would receive the designs, blueprints and construction methods behind El Salvador’s prisons, a partnership he said would cut about $25 million from construction costs.
El Salvador’s prison system, however, has drawn sustained international scrutiny over allegations of torture and other grave human rights abuses. In a 2025 report, Human Rights Watch documented accounts of repeated beatings, torture and sexual violence involving 252 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
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