How Costa Rica Took Down Its First Cartel

A globe-trotting kingpin, a corrupt Supreme Court judge, buying cocaine from the Gulf Clan and selling to the Sinaloa Cartel. This is the full story of Cartel del Caribe Sur.

On March 2, 2022, four gunmen in police uniforms arrived at Shock’s farm in Matama, sent to kill him. Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba, known as “Shock,” was already one of the most powerful traffickers in Costa Rica.

They waited at the property with high-calibre weapons. When a vehicle arrived carrying seven men, the attackers surrounded them, ordered them to lie face-down, and shot each one in the head.

One of the dead was Danny Hernández Fernández, alias “Ratón,” a close ally of Shock and a prominent trafficker with his own crew.

The killers then moved deeper into the farm. Other members of Shock’s organisation heard the gunfire and ran; the attackers pursued them through the fields, firing as they advanced. Most escaped. One did not.

Eight men were killed that night at Finca Los Pintos.