Snoop Dogg was supposed to make history in Costa Rica this December. Instead, the show is dead, ticket holders are waiting on refunds, and the man who booked him is fighting to clear his name.
The Long Beach legend had been set to headline a Dec. 3 concert billed as his first-ever performance in the region, and tickets were already on sale. Then, in the span of a single week, the whole production came apart, and not because of anything the “Gin and Juice” rapper did.
Investigators are now chasing a money trail they believe runs from an alleged drug ring straight into the concert business.
And the promoter’s own defense includes a story about turning away an investor who showed up with a suitcase full of cash.
The concert was scrapped just six days after the man promoting it was taken into custody. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, Stockwell Entretenimiento, the production company owned by veteran Costa Rican promoter Don Stockwell, announced it had reached an agreement with Snoop to cancel the show at the Pedregal event center in Belén, according to The Tico Times.
‘Is He Serious?’: Snoop Dogg’s $30,000 Job Offer Has Fans Wondering How They Get on His Payroll
The company gave no reason. Only days earlier, Stockwell’s team had insisted the show would go on as planned. Refunds for tickets sold through Publitickets will be processed automatically, though the company gave no timeline, Vice reported.
Stockwell was among 18 people arrested on Oct. 7, when authorities carried out 22 raids across the country in what investigators call the “Exodus Case.” Agents picked him up at a property in Santa Ana.
Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency, known as the OIJ, is probing whether a drug trafficking organization allegedly led by Edwin Vargas García, known as “Sobrino,” funneled roughly $859,000 into three events staged in 2024 and 2025 by Stockwell and fellow producer Hugo Benavides Barboza to make dirty money look clean.
Vargas was arrested in January 2025 and remains in custody.
Stockwell was released the next morning and has called the whole thing a misunderstanding. No one in the case has been charged. He has insisted he’s clean, telling prosecutors he once rejected a would-be investor precisely because the man arrived carrying a suitcase stuffed with cash.
His attorney, Daniel Brenes, has said Stockwell didn’t know Vargas well and had no idea he’d been arrested in a drug case. Brenes also said prosecutors planned to ask a judge to put his client behind bars while the investigation plays out.
The timing makes the collapse sting even more. Just two days before the raids, Stockwell was at Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly with members of Snoop’s camp, including his son Cordell Broadus and producer Quincy Jones III, according to a separate Tico Times report.
The group was laying the groundwork for the December show and a documentary about hip-hop’s Afro-descendant roots and the culture of Limón, the country’s Caribbean province.
For the record, nothing ties Snoop himself to the investigation. OIJ official Michael Soto said the artists who performed at the events under scrutiny have no connection to the case, and Snoop’s December date wasn’t one of the three shows investigators flagged.
That hasn’t stopped people online from taking shots at the rapper. Under one X post sharing the news, a user wrote, “Snoop Dogg is a MAGA Trumper – Never forget that.” Another summed it up in a single word: “Typical.” A third tied the collapse to the most controversial booking of Snoop’s career, writing, “karma for krypto ball.”
That last jab points to the gig Snoop still can’t outrun. In January 2025, he performed at the Crypto Ball, a black-tie pre-inauguration bash crowning Donald Trump “the first crypto president,” and fans accused him of betraying them.
The rapper fired back days later, insisting he was still “one hundred percent Black,” but the sellout accusations kept coming for months.
Even a December 2025 shoutout to Gavin Newsom had critics accusing him of playing both sides for a check.
Now, the first trip he’d lined up to the region has fallen apart before he ever packed a bag, thanks to a promoter whose finances are under a microscope.
For Costa Rican fans who already paid up, the only thing left to watch is their bank account. Anyone whose refund doesn’t come through can file a complaint with the country’s Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce.
