Argentina Gang Crackdown Has Dried Up Cocaine Exports Security

Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding


Cocaine exports to Europe have been blocked, valetinowiki.racing she says


Murders in Rosario center least expensive in a minimum of a decade


By Lucinda Elliott


BUENOS AIRES, allmy.bio Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on an objective to stamp out drug gangs in the South American country that have actually driven rising violence and led to a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She says she is prospering.


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


Bullrich, wiki.fablabbcn.org in an uncommon interview with international media, informed Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and obstructing shipments from making their method to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has expanded in recent years.


"We've had record cocaine seizures which's produced fantastic regard for us regionally and likewise in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was discovered in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, utahsyardsale.com including that "obviously there might be some deliveries that were undiscovered."


The security ministry validated that cocaine was not discovered in any shipments that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to individually confirm that.


Once a rival to Milei as the governmental candidate for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on crime, tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing expert system to track gangs.


In Rosario, according to local federal government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the lowest in at least the last decade and down from almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, systemcheck-wiki.de the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.


"We decided to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the nationwide and regional governments in Rosario had been an essential factor, as well as the courts taking a tougher line. The federal government has actually also targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.


"We eliminated the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who utilized the jails to keep their drug criminal activity rings going. We separated them," she said.


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


"There was a concerted security effort by the national federal government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than just having more police on the streets, which is a much more feasible strategy," he said.


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


Last year, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, drapia.org and visited his mega-prison that holds tens of thousands of gang members in difficult conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have actually shown rows of tattooed and topless prisoners 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 told Reuters she was enhancing 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 constructing a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "lack of control in recent years," she said.


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


Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away respond to a demand for comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the concept of enhancing border security in a response to the procedures.


Bullrich, a political veteran who has brought Milei essential 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 country.


The 2 are previous 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 actually shot back that the former economic expert was mentally unsteady.


Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting him as he seeks 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 and Rosalba O'Brien)