"President of Costa Rica Rodrigo Chaves and his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele led a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Centre for High Containment of Organised Crime (CACCO), a maximum-security mega-prison to be built in the province of Alajuela, designed to house the country’s most dangerous criminals. The Costa Rican prison, estimated to cost US$35 million and with capacity for around 5,100 inmates, is inspired by El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), where high-ranking gang members are held. Speaking at the official event on Wednesday, Chaves said the Judicial Branch and the Legislative Assembly must “make decisions — in the case of the Legislative Assembly, to toughen sentences”. He added that his government will present a bill against organised crime next week, which would allow Costa Rica “to hold organised combatants against society in this prison”. “That is how El Salvador did it. Then we judge them for rape, murder and drug trafficking. It is the only route,” Chaves said. He warned that anyone who breaks the law “will first face the police and then a Judicial Branch without hesitation or corruption”. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Costa Rica’s security challenge “is the same as El Salvador’s was when it began”, warning that the situation “will continue to grow if it is not stopped”. He added that Costa Rica “has the blessing” of confronting the problem at an early stage, before it reaches the scale previously seen in El Salvador, allowing the country to “save lives, economic resources and years of suffering”. Bukele stressed that Costa Rica “makes its own decisions”, but said El Salvador’s experience could serve as an “important input” to its strategy. He added that his attendance at the ceremony was part of the Shield of the Americas strategic alliance, signed by both countries in December, aimed at “collaborating and exchanging experiences and information to guarantee the security of our peoples.""