Italian Wanted in 2021 Santa Cruz Killing Extradited to France

Costa Rica extradited two men to France on Thursday afternoon. One of them is an Italian national investigated in connection with the 2021 shooting death of a French citizen in Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. The Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) identified the men as Gianni Marco Basile, 68, and Iván Javier Pablot Martínez, 48, a Colombian-born naturalized Costa Rican. French authorities want them in separate cases. Basile is sought on suspicion of aggravated homicide and extortion, and Pablot on international drug trafficking charges. Agents from the OIJ’s Special Tactical Response Service (SERT) escorted both men from La Reforma prison to Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela. There they were handed to French officials and flown on a commercial flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau in San José coordinated the transfer, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office directed the case. Attorney General Carlo Díaz said the extraditions are part of the international judicial cooperation mechanisms through which Costa Rica responds to requests from other countries. According to the OIJ, Basile is investigated for his alleged role in the killing of Pierre Claude Gazel, a French citizen who died on Oct. 5, 2021. The agency said Gazel was shot in front of his home in Santa Cruz at around 6:40 a.m., and the gunman fled on a motorcycle with another person. The OIJ said French investigators identified prior conflicts and communications between Basile and Gazel. Because the victim was French, authorities in France chose to prosecute the case there. A judicial authority in Paris issued an international arrest warrant for Basile on Feb. 14, 2025. OIJ INTERPOL agents tracked Basile for about two months before finding that he lived in Escazú, west of San José. They arrested him on Nov. 7, 2025, while he was driving in Curridabat. A criminal court in San José’s Third Judicial Circuit authorized his extradition on June 3, 2026. Pablot was detained in September 2025 by OIJ agents who specialize in organized crime. French authorities allege he belonged to a network that shipped drugs from Colombia to France and other European countries. The case dates to Nov. 22, 2011, when French customs officers in Marseille arrested two Colombians carrying 29 kilograms (64 pounds) of cocaine. Investigators found the group allegedly used a company that sold wooden houses as cover for moving drugs into Europe. French authorities linked Pablot to the group, where he allegedly worked with a man known as “El Viejo.” Case documents cited in local reports indicate that a criminal court in Marseille sentenced Pablot to nine years in prison on drug trafficking charges. A San José criminal court authorized his extradition on in April and an appeals court later upheld the decision. The OIJ described Pablot’s case as one of the first extradition proceedings coordinated with France over international drug trafficking. A second man detained with Pablot and named in the same French case, Hamilton Fernando Restrepo Osorio, has not yet been extradited. Both cases now pass to the French courts. The transfers add to a growing number of extraditions out of Costa Rica this year, as the country handles more requests from abroad tied to violent crime and drug trafficking.