Argentina Gang Crackdown has actually Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security

Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she says

Murders in Rosario hub most affordable in a minimum of a years

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Patricia Bullrich, minister, is on a mission to mark out drug gangs in the South American nation that have actually driven increasing violence and resulted in a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She says she is prospering.

Argentina has grown in significance as a transit hub for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has flowed down crucial waterways and out through river ports such as that of Rosario, Lionel Messi’s hometown. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

Bullrich, in an uncommon interview with international media, told Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and blocking deliveries from making their way to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually broadened in the last few years.

“We have actually had record cocaine seizures and that’s produced excellent respect for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was identified in Europe,” she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that “of course there might be some deliveries that were undiscovered.”

The security ministry confirmed that cocaine was not found in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to separately verify that.

Once a competitor to Milei as the governmental prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal offense, tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and using artificial intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year – the least expensive in a minimum of the last years and below nearly 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

“We decided to hit hard against the gangs,” Bullrich said, adding that cooperation in between the nationwide and local governments in Rosario had been a key element, in addition to the courts taking a harder line. The government has likewise targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.

“We eliminated the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who used the jails to keep their drug criminal offense rings going. We isolated them,” she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence expert and president of regional think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on event intelligence with aiding the crime reduction.

“There was a collective security effort by the nationwide federal government to focus on Rosario, with a concentrate on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more authorities on the streets, which is a much more feasible method,” he said.

Bullrich has actually sent out a costs to congress to establish a brand-new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to take down criminal networks, and said she has actually also gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.

Last year, she hosted El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, and visited his mega-prison that holds 10s of countless gang members in difficult conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have actually revealed rows of tattooed and partially nude inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

“In our case, our system has actually been a little, let’s say, less severe. But when we have to be difficult, we are difficult,” said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, planning check outs to cocaine-growing locations in Peru, and increasing cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being reinforced, including by building a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had been a “lack of control in the last few years,” she said.

“We’re going to start a program, a plan, we’re taking troops to the border area with Brazil,” she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not immediately react to a demand for comment. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, king-wifi.win last week welcomed the idea of enhancing border security in a reaction to the steps.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually brought Milei crucial center-ground support, said she had actually been won over to the libertarian’s broader financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have actually divided Argentines but helped support the country.

The 2 are former rivals. During the election race, Milei labeled her a leftist “bomb-thrower” – a recommendation to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist movement – to which Bullrich had actually shot back that the former financial pundit was mentally unstable.

Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting him as he looks for to gain seats in legal mid-term elections set for later this year.

“We’re more libertarian than conservative now,” she said.

(Reporting by Lucinda Elliott. Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Daniel Ramos in La Paz; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien)