Police found FARC money in Costa Rican couple’s house.

On Friday, March 14, Costa Rican police raided the Santa Bárbara de Heredia home of Francisco Gutierrez and Cruz Prado. The couple — Gutierrez, a naturalized Costa Rican from Spain and Prado a native Costa Rican — had been storing a safe in their home since 1997. The $480,000 stash was property of the Columbian rebel group FARC.

The married couple claim that they had no knowledge of the money’s origin, but instead say that they had met both Raul Reyes, former guerrilla commander for FARC, and Rodrigo Granda, FARC’s notorious Canciller (Chancellor) under false identities. On their first encounter with the men, Granda went by the name of “Ricardo” and Reyes identified himself as “Dario.”

Ricardo and Dario claimed to be negotiators for peace in the Columbian conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia and as members of the political left, Gutierrez and Prado were in favor of peace negotiations. Prado states that Reyes told them that he had come to Costa Rica to negotiate with the United States Department of State, and the couple believed this mission to be of great importance. They therefore offered to host Dario (Reyes) and his wife “Olga,” who was really Gloria Marín, daughter of FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, aka “Tirofijo.” The couple says today that they do not regret their offering their home to Reyes and Marín, since having hope for peace in Columbia is not a crime.

Reyes and Marín stayed with the Heredia-based couple for several days, and when Reyes later asked them if a friend could drop something off at the house, they agreed. Granda, then “Ricardo,” showed up at the home with the electronic safe, asking that they store it there indefinitely. Whether due to verbal maneuvering by Granda or some other reason, Prado says that she and her husband thought the safe to contain only documents, nothing more.

Gutierrez and Prado say that they finally learned the identity of their former house guests in 2004, when Columbian agents kidnapped Granda in Caracas, Venezuela. (He has since been released by the Columbian government, who is working with France on the French release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Columbian citizen.) Gutierrez and Prado say that they were terrified when they realized who owned the box, but did not feel they could contact the authorities or get rid of it since the box did not belong to them.

But during the Ecuadorean FARC camp raid on March 1, during which Reyes was killed, the whereabouts and contents of the safe were discovered in three FARC computers. Just two weeks later, the Columbian government joined forces with Costa Rican police to raid the Gutierrez-Prado home and seize the safe and its contents.

Gutierrez and Prado say that though FARC apparently manipulated them, they will not accuse anyone of anything. Likewise, the couple has not been formally accused of any crime and has no charges pending against them.

Picture courtesy of La Nacion.

This post's rating:

Related Stories

Filed under: Costa Rica News on March 19th, 2008