This is the transcript of episode 72 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
FERNÁNDEZ: I swear before God and before you —as I promised during the campaign— to confront organized crime and take a hard line against criminals.
GRESSIER, HOST: That’s new Costa Rican president Laura Fernández. A week ago, she was sworn in at the National Stadium in Costa Rica. She’s the self-proclaimed “heir” of outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves, billing herself as an ally of Nayib Bukele, Donald Trump, and Israel.
Costa Rican embassy in Jerusalem?
In Costa Rica, Laura Fernández says she is the president of “continuity” with her predecessor, Rodrigo Chaves. She swore in Chaves that very same day as Minister of the Presidency — the same position she held in Chaves’s administration.
This new post for the former president allows him to essentially serve as Fernández’s right-hand man. He can coordinate the cabinet, be a bridge for negotiations in the Legislative Assembly, and advise the president directly.
Fernández is 39 years old. She made the highly visible choice of holding her first meeting with cabinet ministers in the National Stadium, as promised. Among her first decrees as president, she brought up projects like reactivating the Marina del Limón, a cruise ship construction project halted due to irregularities.
And, as we’ve covered in recent weeks, she also brought up plans to reactivate gold mining at the Crucitas mine on the border with Nicaragua, where illegal mining has become a source of international conflict.
These projects, according to Fernández, were not carried out during the Chaves administration “due to political pettiness.”
The third decree she signed is to “confront organized crime and take a hard line against criminals.” She promises new regulations to recalculate prison sentences — very much in the style of Bukele, has boosted the ongoing construction of a mega-prison in Costa Rica modeled after CECOT.
Podcast: Rodrigo Chaves’ “Heir” in Costa Rica Outruns the Pack
Which brings us to her guest list. Bukele didn’t attend, but he sent Vice President Félix Ulloa in his place. Also present was the Nicaraguan foreign minister Valdrack Jaentschke, whom a group of U.N. experts identified as a key figure in transnational espionage and repression.
Costa Rica is the country with the largest Nicaraguan diaspora; thus, the quick backlash against his presence.
Also in attendance was U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau. The day before, he and President Fernández met with Kristi Noem, Trump’s special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, on an array of regional security issues.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo attended and pledged to strengthen relations in a private meeting with Fernández. Nasry Asfura of Honduras and José Raúl Mulino of Panama were also there.
So was Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who met with Fernández before inauguration. The Israeli government announced that Fernández told them she is willing to move the Costa Rican embassy to Jerusalem, which would make them the third country in Central America to do so since Trump’s first term.
Proof of life for Indigenous Nicaraguan
Next, to Nicaragua. In early May, the U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua called for proof of life for Brooklyn Rivera, a leader of the Indigenous political party YATAMA, who was imprisoned in 2023 by the Ortega-Murillo regime.
As has occurred with other political prisoners, his location remains unknown, while no formal criminal charges have been filed against him.
The U.N. experts also requested to clarify Rivera’s whereabouts and, if he died while in custody, to provide information about the cause of death and the location of his remains.
In the statement, the U.N. experts also noted that there are reports of deaths in state custody, as well as allegations of inhumane conditions and the systematic withholding of information regarding victims’ whereabouts.
According to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, more than 112 cases of enforced disappearances have been reported to the regime, to no response.
In March 2026, after waves of expulsions of political prisoners from the country in the past three years, the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners reported that there were still 47 political prisoners detained in Nicaragua, at least 11 of whom had been victims of enforced disappearance.
The Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua have stated that Rivera and other political prisoners remained unjustly detained in inhumane conditions and deprived of medical care.
In 2023, Brooklyn Rivera, 73, was arrested at his home on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua after denouncing the situation of Indigenous people in the country at an international forum.
One month after his arrest, his political party’s registration was revoked by the Supreme Electoral Council, which is fully controlled by the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
During a session of the U.N. Universal Periodic Review in 2024, the Ortega-Murillo regime acknowledged that he was being held on allegations of treason, undermining national security, and conspiracy.
Since the arrest, his daughter, Tininiska Rivera, has reported her father’s forced disappearance and has stated that she has been persecuted by the regime, forcing her into exile.
Reported spyware procurement in El Salvador
Last, to El Salvador. A new investigation from the U.S. digital outlet The Newsground reports that the Nayib Bukele regime sought to purchase an unnamed spyware tool after the use of Pegasus against journalists and human rights defenders in El Salvador was revealed in 2022.
The article named two men who, on behalf of the Presidency of El Salvador, were part of a delegation to Romania for a product demonstration. One is a Salvadoran executive of a company contracting for the U.S. Embassy. And the second is a Salvadoran government representative named Juan Francisco Flores Molina.
This week, El Faro English verified that Flores Molina indeed made this trip, and that he’s a member of the Joint General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMCFA) of El Salvador.
El Salvador Joint General Staff Official Negotiated Purchase of Spyware “Better Than Pegasus”
Spyware has a long rap sheet in El Salvador. Investigators at the Citizen Lab and Access Now found almost three-dozen people who were spied on using Pegasus between 2020 and 2021.
Two-thirds of them —or rather, us— are current or former employees of El Faro. Many of us filed a pending lawsuit in the U.S. against the Israeli developer of Pegasus, NSO Group.
Last year, Trump’s former ambassador to El Salvador, Ronald Johnson, told the U.S. Senate that “I don’t doubt that Pegasus could have been acquired” in El Salvador. He said he even warned Salvadoran authorities against spying on U.S. Embassy employees. Johnson is now ambassador to Mexico.
The spyware was reportedly marketed as “better than Pegasus” and billed at $10.9 million when two representatives of the Salvadoran government visited Romania in 2024. But the price tag was too high, and they didn’t lock in the purchase.
According to a draft contract from December 2024 obtained by The Newsground, this all involved a firm in Dubai, a broker from Cyprus, and a Salvadoran reseller.
John Scott-Railton, a leading researcher on Pegasus from the Citizen Lab who worked on the El Salvador case, gave his opinion on X: “Big Picture: seems to me like El Salvador's conclusion after getting caught abusing Pegasus was: time to upgrade.”
This episode was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and Leyrian Colón Santiago, with editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.