Between 2017 and May 2024, 7,600 kilos (about 16,750 pounds) of gold with a declared value in customs of $152 million USD left the country. This is revealed by documents obtained and a data analysis carried out jointly by The Voice, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (Spanish acronym: CLIP) and Interferencia de Radios UCR based on documents from the Ministry of Finance.
The information extracted from the Information Technology System for Customs Control, known by the Spanish acronym TICA, allowed this media alliance to identify 22 exporters, of which 11 are individuals and 11 are companies.
A company from Abangares, in Guanacaste, leads the amount of money exported in gold bullion. According to the data analysis done by this journalistic alliance, Metales Abangares J M S. A., took 537 kilos (1,183 pounds) of gold valued at $22.2 million out of Costa Rica between 2022 and May of this year.
Only in the first five months of this year, Metales Abangares J M S. A. sent more than 112 kilos (247 pounds) of the precious metal abroad.
The company was created just two years ago, is based in San Juan Grande of Abangares, and its president and legal representative is Alejandra Morún Almanzor, 25 years old.
The treasurer of Metales Abangares is José Antonio Morún Picado, father of the president of the company and brother of Geovanni José Morun Picado, who appears as a defendant in case 19-004389-1322-PE, in which the prosecution is investigating the alleged crimes of money laundering and illegal mining.
Asked about the origin of the gold that Metales Abangares exported, Alejandra Morún indicated that she preferred not to give details about the company’s operation or about the origin of the gold that the company exported.
As I explained, I do know about the whole issue but I don’t want to give information. I prefer that it be my father directly,” said the president of Metales Abangares.
The Voice spoke by telephone with José Antonio Morun Picado and asked him about the quantities of exported gold registered with the Ministry of Finance and about the origin of the gold taken out of Costa Rica, but the treasurer of Metales Abangares stated that he would not give that information by telephone and asked that a formal email be sent to him with the identification of the journalist and the media outlet.
Several messages were sent to his WhatsApp and he was asked for his email address to comply with his formal request and he was also offered the option of holding the interview through a virtual platform but as of the deadline for this article, he had not responded to the messages.
The company Metal Export L Y M also appears among the largest exporters of gold from Costa Rica. Between July of 2018 and July of 2020, that company took 583 kilos (1,285 pounds) of gold valued at more than $9.2 million out of the country.
This company’s sales ceased shortly before operations by the Money Laundering Prosecutor’s Office ended with the arrest of its president, Rodolfo Lanzoni Vindas, in a luxurious home in Santo Domingo of Heredia.
Consulted by The Voice, Lanzoni Vindas affirmed that his entire gold exportation business was legal and that he has been waiting for eight years for evidence to be presented in an investigation that, in his opinion, “makes no sense.”
“Since I was the largest exporter, they thought that all of Crucitas was mine and that all the Nicaraguans who were there, the 4,000, were working for me. In other words, that was the opening, and since I exported for 20 years, but I had nothing to do with it,” Lanzoni affirmed.
Asked about the origin of the gold exported by Metal Export L Y M, Lanzoni replied that he obtained it from legally constituted pawn shops and from Abangares. The businessman described the 2020 raid by the justice system as “a show” and affirmed that he has all the documents to prove the traceability of the gold he exported.
The price of gold skyrocketed
In Costa Rica, gold mining is only permitted on a small scale and with traditional artisanal methods, but the large volumes exported, as well as multiple sources consulted in Abangares and in the northern zone, indicate that the thousands of kilos of gold that leave in gold bars through the airport come from a massive and illegal exploitation of the Crucitas deposit, in San Carlos.
This illegal gold mining, which continues to grow in Costa Rica, is happening just at the time when the international price of gold has broken all records of value and gone from $1,268 per ounce in 2018 to $2,450 at the beginning of 2024.
The Abangares miners explore deeper and deeper tunnels and shafts, where the difficulty of extracting the material grows exponentially every year. Photo: Rubén F. Román
One of the big changes that have occurred in the illegal extraction of gold in Costa Rica is that now, the raw gold leaves Crucitas, is clandestinely transported to Abangares, in Guanacaste, where it is processed and exported as if it had been extracted in that Guanacaste canton.
The investigation done by this journalistic alliance reveals that today, a trail of unprecedented environmental contamination is occurring in clandestine yards and processing plants in Abangares and that, at the same time, thousands of kilos of gold continue to leave Costa Rica as if the country had a mining industry in the middle of expansion.
Frequent travelers
Among the individuals who have exported the most gold from Costa Rica in the first months of 2024, according to the Ministry of Finance’s Unique Customs Documents (Spanish acronym: DUAS), appears the name José Miguel Porras Montero, president of the Cantonal Union of Development Associations of Abangares (Spanish acronym: UNCADA).
Porras Montero is one of the new protagonists of the gold business and registered 77 kilos (170 pounds) exported in the first five months of 2024. These sales were declared at just over $4 million.
Porras Montero assured The Voice that the gold he transported is not material from his personal property but is exported by UNCADA and that his name appears on the DUAS because he is the one in charge of transporting it by air to the United States.
It may be issued in my name because I transport it, but the DUA and all the documents are issued in the name of the Cantonal Union, the invoice and the packing list,” explained the president of UNCADA.
The gold exporter claimed that this amount of gold exported comes from “about 800 purchases” from 800 people – some of whom are sold to repeatedly – and he affirmed that they have the supporting documents to document these purchases.
Regarding the origin of the gold, Porras was ambiguous about the validity of the method they use to document the origin of the gold. “It’s gold from Abangares. For that matter, I can’t guarantee that it’s gold from Abangares. It’s complicated, but I do, when a miner comes from Abangares, he signs here a sworn statement saying that the material he brings is from Abangares.”
In other words, the test they apply to rule out that it’s illegal gold is the word and signature of the person who sells it.
Among other exporters who took out gold as individuals, Juan José Morgan Pérez (now deceased) stands out. He sold 460 kilos (1,014 pounds) of gold valued at more than $11 million between 2017 and 2020.
He is followed by Carlos Luis Zamora Villalobos with the sale of 358 kilos (789 pounds) between 2017 and 2019. The merchandise was declared at $5 million.
Zamora Villalobos alleged that this data is from four years ago since he retired from the gold exportation business in 2018. “I bought from pawn shops. I also had a pawn shop and practically what I negotiated was specifically from pawn shops…. I retired because there were many exporters, there was a line of a lot of exporters.”
Next is Esteban Josué Castro, who took out 275 kilos (606 pounds) of gold estimated at $3.6 million between 2019 and 2020. Castro stopped the activity after that year.
Castro defined himself as a mere transporter and said that he worked for the Dicola company and for people he “believed” were from Venezuela, that he was completely ignorant of the origin of the gold that was in the suitcases and that his only job with the metal was to take it from the airport to foreign countries.
The Ministry of Finance data indicates that in addition to the gold that came out under Castro’s name, the Dicola company exported as a company another 125 kilos (275 pounds) of gold valued at $2.4 million.
Inconsistent information
According to TICA records, between 2020 and 2021, gold sales abroad fell and this decrease could be explained due to airport closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the activity picked up again starting in 2022 and to date, gold bars continue to leave the country, mainly to the United States, just in the luggage of new travelers.
A coligallero shows a gold nugget extracted from Abangares material. Photo: César Arroyo Castro
The analysis of these documents from the Ministry of Finance revealed that the information contained in these customs papers has different kinds of inconsistencies in their content. In 48% of these documents, the name of the exporter does not appear and in many others, there are inconsistencies in relation to the weight and value of the exported gold.
They also reflect the departure of 4,100 kilos (9,039 pounds) of metal that were declared to customs as scrap gold. Another 2,800 kilos (6,173 pounds) left as gold bars, 14 kilos (31 pounds) as gold dust and 22 kilos (48.5 pounds) as river gold.
Some customs declarations also include silver exports, but they don’t specify how much corresponds to gold and how much to silver.
The Voice consulted the Customs director, Christian Montiel, who initially agreed to comment on the subject by telephone and indicated that the Ministry of Finance knows the identity of all gold exporters but that this information shouldn’t be visible in the DUAS. However, this alliance found the names of the travelers in 52% of these documents.
Finally, the Customs director explained that he couldn’t comment on the origin of the exported gold due to limitations of the General Customs Law and referred our queries to the Ministry of Finance’s press office.
Read also the two other investigations:
- Abangares: Washing the illegal gold from Crucitas
- The mercury that even the State of Costa Rica doesn’t see
Journalists: Noelia Esquivel Solano, José Pablo Román Barzuna, Ernesto Rivera, Mercedes Agüero, David Chavarría y Hulda Miranda Picado
Photography: Rubén F. Román y César Arroyo Castro
Design: Carolina Corrales y Miguel Méndez
Data architect: Rigoberto Carvajal
Mined Countries is a collaborative investigation by The Voice of Guanacaste and Interferencia by Radios UCR (Costa Rica), Concolón Magazine (Panama), and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), which takes an in-depth look at gold mining and its consequences in Costa Rica and Panama. Supported by the Cross Border Investigative Journalism Fund (FOPIT, in Spanish).
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