Visas for sale -- with a `wedding'

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- It's not that Costa Rican law enforcement officials are total cynics, but they suspect there's more than love behind the recent sharp jump in marriages between Cubans and Costa Ricans.

Like money: Costa Ricans earn $3,000 to $5,000 to marry Cubans and then apply for Costa Rican visas to bring their ``spouses'' here, according to police, lawyers and immigration officials.

And influence-peddling: Prosecutors investigating a visa-selling ring recently raided the law offices of a former security minister and say they are looking at the son of a former president.

``We have found an entire organization that gets Cubans visas, and are now expanding into how it got started and who is behind it,'' Attorney General Carlos Arias told The Herald.

There's nothing new about Cubans bending the rules to leave the Communist-ruled island. The Dominican Republic shut down a visa-selling ring last year, and marrying European tourists has long been a common way to escape abroad.

Costa Rica, one of Latin America's oldest democracies, also has traditionally been friendly to Cuban refugees.

But the visa scam made front pages here because of the prominent names and cash involved, as well as Costa Ricans' growing concern about illegal migration from poorer countries like neighboring Nicaragua.

``We have always been a bridge for Cubans leaving their country, but now we need to tighten up a little,'' said Mercedes Bevacqua, director general of the government's immigration department.

The scandal broke after officials spotted the forged signature of Public Security Minister Laura Chinchilla on two applications by Cubans living in Costa Rica to bring relatives to the country.

As prosecutors looked into the case, they found a broad range of irregularities -- from arranged marriages to fake family trees and cash payments to obtain visas for Cubans who would not qualify under normal provisions.

A Herald reporter needed only a half day in San Jose to obtain the names of a lawyer and a former immigration department staffer said to be able to arrange visas for Cubans. Both declined to be interviewed.

Numbers increase

Most of the investigation has focused on the cash-for-weddings charges because of the numbers: 19 Costa Ricans applied to bring Cuban spouses here in 1995; 139 applied in the first 10 months of 1997.

One young Costa Rican married a Cuban woman in her 70s and then applied for a family reunification visa to bring her to San Jose, immigration officials said.

And one lawyer charges up to $5,000 to hire Costa Rican women to fly to Cuba, meet pre-arranged ``boyfriends,'' and then return to San Jose and marry them long-distance, through powers of attorney, said another lawyer and a former immigration official.

``I'm sure some are marriages of convenience, to get people out of Cuba. But if the paperwork is in order, I have no choice but to issue the visas,'' Bevacqua said.

More troubling to prosecutors is evidence of a clique of Costa Ricans and Cubans living here who charge to arrange different types of visas, from work permits to humanitarian visas.

A smoke screen

``We saw requests for visas for a church pastor,'' Attorney General Arias said. ``They were denied, and someone applied again for the same person as a relative and human rights dissident. But they were neither pastors nor relatives.''

Arias' investigators last month searched the offices of Juan Jose Echevarria, a public security minister in the late 1970s and lawyer who worked with an ad hoc church group to expedite humanitarian visa requests for Cubans.

``I can't see why they charged from $1,700 to $7,000 for visas that the government issues for free,'' Arias said.

Arias said he is just beginning to investigate ``the whole issue'' of Costa Rica's Interests Section in Havana, a diplomatic office opened in 1994 to handle consular issues in the absence of full diplomatic relations.

Established by President Jose Maria Figueres, the office was run largely by Jorge Monge, a son of former President Luis Alberto Monge and an influential member of Figueres' National Liberation Party.

``We want to know just who decided this, what this Monge did, what need there was for this,'' Arias said. ``It seems this office was very involved, though maybe unwittingly, with some of these irregularities.''

Business developed

Knowledgeable officials here say that various low-key Cuban visa scams started to develop into a business in 1994, soon after Costa Rica's LACSA airline began operating charter trips to Havana, charging as little as $300 for the round trip and a week's worth of hotels and meals.

But the business hit its stride after the government decided in 1994 to loosen restrictions on visas to Cubans to ease some of the emigration pressures that led 35,000 rafters to flee the island that year, the officials added.

Already allowed to bring in parents, siblings and offspring, Cubans living here were in addition permitted to claim visas for aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, Bevacqua recalled.

About 2,400 Cubans claimed by relatives reached San Jose from 1995 to the end of last year, immigration officials said, joining a Cuban community here with some 20,000 members and two social clubs.

Bevacqua tightened the restrictions last month, again limiting the arrivals to close relatives. ``Enough time has passed,'' she said. ``If these families have not reunited yet, there's been no interest.''