Argentina Gang Crackdown Has Actually Dried Up Cocaine Exports Security

Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is being successful


Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been obstructed, she states


Murders in Rosario center most affordable in at least a decade


By Lucinda Elliott


BUENOS AIRES, surgiteams.com Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on a mission to mark out drug gangs in the South American country that have driven rising violence and led to a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She states she is succeeding.


Argentina has actually grown in importance as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has streamed down essential waterways and out through river ports such as that of Rosario, Lionel Messi's home town. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.


Bullrich, in a rare interview with international media, told Reuters the year-old government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and blocking shipments from making their method to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has expanded over the last few years.


"We have actually had record cocaine seizures which's produced terrific respect for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was discovered in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, including that "naturally there may be some shipments that were undetected."


The security ministry confirmed that cocaine was not discovered in any shipments that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a significant European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to individually verify 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 using artificial intelligence to track gangs.


In Rosario, according to local government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year - the most affordable in at least the last decade and down from almost 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, including that cooperation between the nationwide and local governments in Rosario had actually been a key element, in addition to the courts taking a harder line. The federal government has actually likewise targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.


"We took away the power that the drug employers had in the jails, who used the jails to keep their drug criminal activity rings going. We separated them," she said.


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


"There was a collective security effort by the nationwide government to focus on Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence instead of just having more police on the streets, which is a much more viable technique," he said.


Bullrich has actually sent a bill to congress to develop a new anti-mafia law, akin to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, and said she has actually likewise gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.


Last year, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and visited his that holds tens of countless gang members in difficult conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have shown rows of tattooed and topless inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.


"In our case, our system has actually been a little bit, let's state, less severe. But when we need to be difficult, we are difficult," said Bullrich.


TOUGHER BORDERS


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


Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being strengthened, consisting of by building a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had been a "lack of control recently," she said.


"We're going to begin a program, a plan, we're taking troops to the border location with Brazil," she said.


Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not instantly react to an ask for remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, hb9lc.org recently welcomed the concept of strengthening border security in a response to the measures.


Bullrich, prazskypantheon.cz a political veteran who has actually brought Milei key center-ground support, said she had been won over to the libertarian's wider financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have actually divided Argentines but assisted stabilize the nation.


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 motion - to which Bullrich had shot back that the previous financial expert 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 tandme.co.uk later on 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)