Crime in Panama

This comes under BALANCED REPORTING 101

I am often asked about crime in Panama and when someone starts to wave an article in front of me about someone who was held up at gun point and robbed saying “look at what happened in Panama”, I tell them a couple of stories about my little ole neighborhood called Coconut Grove back in Florida.  Great neighborhood of $500,000 to $1,000,000 homes and within a mile of our old place $10,000,000 homes.  Back in Coconut Grove, I would too often hear about a couple walking home from the theatre or dinner that were held up by a young man with a glock pointed in their face demanding their jewelry and their money.  The one incident that sealed the deal for us and one of the reasons we came to Boquete, Panama was when my next door neighbor was brutally murdered along with her 3 year old son and unborn child by a crack addict looking for money and it happened  in broad daylight!   Also, not to mention the rampant multiple murders in schools across the United States including one of the most shocking where many children were killed by a deranged teenager.  This is unheard of in Panama as it is in most other places in the world.

With that, I bring you a story about how we take things seriously here in Panama and are working to keep Panama as free of crime as possible in the expat communities and beyond.   I also want to personally thank my friends here in Boquete that were instrumental in helping to take down some gang members out of Panama City that were terrorizing San Carlos on the coast near the City.

The story has appeared in a number of places but I like this one the best as it all started with our hero Rodny who is our fellow that mans the Boquete hot line of Alto al Crimen.

When in Doubt, Call Rodny

June 9, 2013

On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at 10:49AM a resident of Boquete called the Boquete Hot Line to report that they had been among the victims of a violent robbery late the previous evening at a remote bed & breakfast hotel, Rancho los Toros near San Carlos. They were attacked from the woods by ninja-style by men with masks and guns. All the guests and staff were tied up, guns held to their heads and they were beaten to varying degrees. But this was not the first time.

Almost exactly three months before, the same hotel was attacked in the same way by apparently the same gang. One of the attackers had used a stolen iPhone to take wonderful pictures of himself and his family, without realizing that they were being uploaded to iCloud and thus the owner. Still, the police investigation stalled and no arrests were made. With that one call to the Boquete Hot Line, their luck ran out.

When the Boquete Hot Line operator received the call at 10:49AM, his first action was to report the incident to Alto al Crimen board members. Within an hour, a private investigator, Martin Ferrara from Boquete, was dispatched to San Carlos and was on the job before the day was out. Another call was made to Roberto Chocolate in Santa Clara, near San Carlos. For the last year Alto al Crimen has been working with Roberto to establish an Alto al Crimen-style community policing operation called Neighbors Helping Neighbors. Roberto immediately took the lead in heading up the community response to this incident and announced a community meeting for Thursday June 6 at the very hotel where the attack occurred.

Roberto called on Carlos Espinosa, until recently lead attorney for the Policia National in Panama City and asked for his assistance. Carlos aided with follow up to make sure the cases were correctly handled. He quickly discovered that, within days the first case was about to be dropped – because the original victims had not followed procedures correctly and took action to keep the case alive. More on Carlos later.

Over the next week, the private investigator assembled information about the case and determined who the suspected perpetrators were, residing both in Panama City and the local San Carlos area.  The information he developed was turned over to the police and the personaria.

Roberto Chocolate is a prodigious fund raiser. He immediately began asking local tourist-oriented businesses for donations, including real estate, restaurants and hotels. He wrote letters to the top government ministers for crime and tourism and had Carlos hand-deliver them. Local television stations were alerted to the upcoming meeting along with neighborhood watch organizations from Gorgona and el Valle de Anton. And of course, all of the expats were encouraged to attend the meeting. Mark and Martine Heyer attended on behalf of Alto al Crimen, bringing boxes of boat horns to help raise money.

The meeting got under way at Rancho los Toros at 5PM. After a call to order and introductions by Roberto Chocolate, short presentations were given by Alto al Crimen and other local community security groups. The Panamanian officials arrived fashionably late, but in force, with Marcelino Agilar, Deputy Attorney General of Panama leading the parade, followed by a Director of the Ministry of Tourism, the Commissioner of Tourist Police, the mayor of San Carlos, the police captain responsible for the district that includes San Carlos, along with their support staff. Mr. Agilar had wonderful news for the overflow crowd of more than 120 rowdy but respectful residents.

Thanks to the detective work turned over to the police by Martin Ferrara, on Wednesday they were able to arrest the “picture taker” in Panama City, who promptly rolled over on his associates. On Thursday, four hours before the meeting, other gang members, including the leader, were arrested in the San Carlos area. We were informed that since these crimes involve violence and guns, they will not be getting out of jail any time soon – unlike many criminals who are merely petty thieves who snatch big screens and laptops but do not engage in violence.

The police captain, with Carlos Espinosa as his interpreter, fielded all questions from the audience, in particular why it had taken 50 minutes for the police to respond when the police station is only 15 minutes away. It turns out that the police only have two cars to cover this large area, from Punta Chame to Rio Hato, more than an hour drive. On the night in question, they had already received a false alarm from the hotel’s automated alarm system, presumably caused by lightning, 20 minutes prior to the actual attack,  When the real alarm came in, manually triggered only after the attack was over, their sole police car was on a call in another area and took 50 minutes to return and reach the hotel. The officials present pledged three new police cars and more cops for the area.

As a side note I also understand that more actions was taken as reported in this email.

The event was covered by the press including a TV camera crew.

They pointed out that the Ministry of Tourism spent $50M to promote the safety of Panama; they do not want to jeopardize that investment.

The group is developing a database of crimes to present to officials accurate figures of the crime in the area. Reporting a crime was covered and emphasized that if it isn’t reported, it makes the area crime appear less than it is and cannot be solved. Anyone that has been the victim of a crime is encouraged to contact Roberto Chocolate to add to the statistics collected.

Proof that the government is taking this seriously was the announcement of two new Designated Prosecutors that will be in San Carlos and Chame to expedite search warrants and local investigations. Many of the police are now learning English. Three more police cars, totaling six, and some of the new police academy graduates will be assigned to San Carlos. It was pointed out that San Carlos isn’t a sleepy fishing village anymore; it’s another Coronado, surrounded by many expensive resorts and gated developments.

All during the meeting, Roberto had people passing through the audience collecting donations. Every few minutes he would stand up and proclaim “So and so has just donated $100,” holding the cash up for all to see. Others distributed boat horns, with the proceeds going to support Neighbors Helping Neighbors. In all, for the week ending Thursday night, they collected $6,000 in donations and pledges. The funds will be used to set up their foundation, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, fund further investigation and get started on establishing their own Hot Line.

Earlier this year we announced our Alto al Crimen objective to have Rodny train other handicapped people to do the job he does for their own communities. Now we have an actual job requisition and they have the funding to support it. Rodny is researching how to identify candidates and we are planning the most effective way to do the training. We have had good success with our trial program in Volcan and know that the Hot Line service has great value wherever it is implemented.

Alto al Crimen has pledged to share with Neighbors Helping Neighbors all that we have learned in Boquete. We also know that we in Boquete will benefit greatly from the high-level government contacts that we were introduced to. The most immediate of these benefits is our prospective work with Carlos Espino, who is uniquely knowledgeable and works at the top levels of the Panamanian criminal justice system.

Alto al Crimen is working to bring Carlos Espinosa to Boquete to address the community on the functioning of the criminal justice system and upcoming changes to the criminal justice system and what they will mean for us all. In addition, he will address questions of how to expedite pending cases and make the existing system work better for us and help us further reduce the crime rate in Boquete. We expect this meeting to be of extraordinary interest and will be a meeting not to be missed.

Everyone at the meeting was incredibly impressed that one call to the Boquete Hot Line resulted in such a dramatic and ultimately productive response.

We at Alto al Crimen salute our fellow Boquete residents (who asked that their name not be used) for taking the initiative to make that call, even though they were not in Boquete and had no expectation of help. Their simple action set in motion a chain of events that in seven days ended a reign of terror and will benefit thousands of expats and Panamanians in our ongoing campaign to make Panama the safe and wonderful place that we know it can be.