An alleged drug dealer with Lake Country ties was recently arrested in Costa Rica.
According to CR Hoy, a news publication in Costa Rica, 35-year-old Jesse Michael Valentino Bou-Saleh was caught by The Costa Rican office of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) with help from the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) on Thursday, Jan. 22.
He was taken into custody placed under the jurisdiction of the San José Criminal Court to begin the extradition process, stated the Costa Rican news article.
The news publication added Canadian authorities released an international request for his arrest in 2025.
Bou-Saleh was charged in Vernon Provincial Court on Feb. 12, 2025, along with four others allegedly in relation to “the largest and most significant drug and gun seizure” in the Okanagan on Mar. 3, 2023. He was charged on four counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking in West Kelowna and possession of a restricted firearm in Lake Country. Additionally, he was charged with commission of an offence for criminal organization, trafficking in a controlled substance, and conspiracy to commit indictable offence in Vernon on Jan. 19, 2023.
Among the items seized on Mar. 3, 2023 was over 30 kilograms of suspected illicit drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, fentanyl, and synthetic opioid pills. Over 20 kg was believed to be fentanyl (about 200,000 street level doses). Additionally, five vehicles, $100,000 cash, 27 assault rifles, 18 handguns, six shotguns, body armour, a commercial pill press, commercial mixer and evidence of firearm manufacturing and assembly were also seized.
On that morning, The Targeted Policing Unit, in collaboration with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C (CFSEU-BC), simultaneously executed four search warrants across three different communities in the Okanagan – Residences on Belaire Drive in Armstrong, Stillwater Court in Lake Country, Majoros Road in West Kelowna and a storage locker in West Kelowna were all searched.
The search warrants were culminated over a nearly three-month long drug trafficking investigation into a group believed to be supplying Vernon and other areas with various drugs, including fentanyl.
The five people arrested, all known to police, were later released from custody pending charge approval at the investigation’s completion.
CR Hoy stated Bou-Saleh was found in Tamarindo, known as a tourist community, with his romantic partner and children “after an exhaustive search of police sources and coordination with external agencies.”
“It is a job that has been developing for approximately a month and a half of operational work in conjunction with the Mounted Police of this country, where today we managed to carry out the capture with positive results,” said head of Interpol-OIJ Osvaldo Ramirez. “We are currently completing all the necessary procedures to begin the extradition process, initiate all the relevant communications with the Canadian authorities, and obviously wait to finalize all the processes stipulated by law to send this person to Canada to serve the corresponding sentence.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court.