In the early hours of February 10, the Costa Rican Police captured a 20-year-old man named Carvajal Fernández, the alleged perpetrator of the murder of Roberto Samcam, a retired major of the Nicaraguan Army who was in exile in the country.

Samcam was murdered in June 2025 by a hitman who entered his home posing as a delivery driver. The former military officer was a well-known opponent of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua, who stripped him of his citizenship in 2023.

On September 12, 2025, the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) arrested the first suspects: Stephanie Chacón Guillén, 30 years old, Chaves Medina, 35 years old, Robles Salas, 23 years old, and a man surnamed Orozco Gonzáles, 33 years old.

According to authorities, they all participated in the logistics of committing the murder.

Costa Rica’s Attorney General, Carlo Díaz, said that one of the hypotheses considers that the Nicaraguan army may have ordered the murder.

Samcam’s family maintains that it was a political crime planned by the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship. The OIJ will continue investigating to find the mastermind behind the murder.

The murder of Samcam comes on the heels of the assassinations of other Nicaraguan political opponents exiled in Costa Rica. Human rights organizations consider this part of a transnational campaign of repression aimed at silencing critical voices.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has identified several mechanisms of transnational repression in addition to murder; for example, it mentioned the misuse of INTERPOL red notices to persecute political opponents.