Costa Rica has sent 45 metric tons of seized drugs to the United States aboard a US Air Force plane, and the entire load is set to be destroyed on American soil. That comes to about 99,000 pounds of narcotics taken off the table in one trip.
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The shipment left from a Ministry of Security base at Juan Santamaría International Airport, the main airport outside the capital, San José. It flew out on a C17, a massive military cargo plane the Air Force uses to move troops, vehicles, and heavy equipment around the world. This time the cargo was drugs that Costa Rican authorities had collected over several months of raids and busts carried out with help from the DEA.
The reason the seized drugs are being destroyed in the US instead of Costa Rica comes down to money. Costa Rica’s Attorney General Carlo Díaz said budget limits kept the country from handling the destruction on its own. Burning or chemically destroying tons of narcotics safely takes special facilities, security, and oversight, and Costa Rica could not cover the cost. So the United States sent the plane.
The two governments describe the cargo differently. Costa Rica’s Public Prosecutor’s Office referred to the shipment only as drugs and did not name the substances. The US Embassy in San José described it as cocaine. Officials put the estimated street value at more than $1.25 billion.
Díaz was on hand for the handoff alongside US Ambassador Melinda Hildebrand. Leaders from Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency, known as the OIJ, were also there. The OIJ works a lot like the FBI does in the United States, investigating serious crimes like drug trafficking and organized crime.
The US Embassy said the seized drugs were intercepted with support from the United States and other countries in the Shield of the Americas. That is a regional security coalition formed to go after drug cartels and the criminal networks that move product across Latin America. Costa Rica’s prosecutors framed the flight as proof that the partnership works, saying every ton seized and destroyed is a ton that never makes it to the streets.
The numbers show how much product has been moving through the country. The US Embassy reported that roughly 44 metric tons of illegal drugs were intercepted in Costa Rica in 2026 alone with American support. This month, an international operation called ATLAS NEXUS led to 375 arrests in Costa Rica, along with the seizure of more than 27.8 tons of drugs and 181 firearms.
The flight also shows how big these busts have become compared to past years. According to an analysis by Latin American Post, 45 metric tons equals about 97 percent of all the cocaine Costa Rica seized during the entire year of 2025. In other words, the country loaded nearly a full year’s worth of seizures onto a single plane.
Costa Rica has long been known as one of the more peaceful countries in Central America. Its location between South American cocaine producers and buyers in North America and Europe has made it a key stop for traffickers. Drugs from Colombia often pass through its ports and airstrips on their way north, which is why so much product is landing in the hands of Costa Rican police in the first place.
With the flight complete, authorities said the seized drugs have finished the final stage of the legal process that follows a bust. Now they just have to be destroyed.
