Argentina Gang Crackdown has actually Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security

Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is being successful

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she says

Murders in Rosario center most affordable in at least a years

By Lucinda Elliott

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

Argentina has grown in value as a transit center for wiki.asexuality.org cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has streamed down key waterways and 35.237.164.2 out through river ports such as that of Rosario, Lionel Messi’s home town. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

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

„We’ve had record cocaine seizures and that’s produced terrific respect for us regionally and also in Europe, because (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was spotted in Europe,“ she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, including that „of course there may be some shipments that were unnoticed.“

The security ministry verified that cocaine was not found in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a significant European port in 2024. Reuters was not able to separately confirm that.

Once a competitor to Milei as the presidential candidate for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal activity, tightening borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing artificial intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to local government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year – the most affordable in a minimum of the last decade and down from almost 300 in 2022 and fraternityofshadows.com 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.

„We chose to strike hard against the gangs,“ Bullrich said, adding that cooperation between the nationwide and regional federal governments in Rosario had been an essential aspect, as well as the courts taking a tougher line. The government has likewise targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.

„We removed the power that the drug bosses had in the jails, who utilized the jails to keep their drug crime rings going. We separated them,“ she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence specialist and president of local think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on gathering intelligence with aiding the crime reduction.

„There was a concerted security effort by the national government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more authorities on the streets, which is a a lot more feasible technique,“ he said.

Bullrich has actually sent an expense to congress to develop a brand-new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, menwiki.men and said she has likewise 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 thousands of gang members in hard conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have actually shown rows of tattooed and topless inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

„In our case, our system has been a bit, let’s state, less harsh. But when we have to be difficult, we are difficult,“ said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was reinforcing border controls to stop drug gangs, planning check outs to cocaine-growing areas in Peru, and enhancing 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 brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had been a „absence of control over the last few years,“ she said.

„We’re going to start a program, a plan, we’re taking soldiers to the border location with Brazil,“ she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away react to an ask for comment. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently welcomed the concept of reinforcing border security in a response to the procedures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually Milei essential center-ground assistance, said she had actually been won over to the libertarian’s wider economic and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have actually divided Argentines but helped support the nation.

The 2 are previous competitors. During the election race, Milei labeled her a leftist „bomb-thrower“ – a recommendation to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist motion – to which Bullrich had shot back that the former economic pundit was emotionally unsteady.

Bullrich said the differences were now behind them and she and her bloc were helping him as he seeks to gain seats in legislative 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)