Argentina Gang Crackdown Has Actually Dried Up Cocaine Exports Security

Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding


Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been obstructed, she states


Murders in Rosario center most affordable in a minimum of a decade


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 country that have actually driven increasing violence and caused a spike in to Europe. She says she is being successful.


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


Bullrich, in an unusual interview with global media, told Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and obstructing deliveries from making their way to end markets, including to Europe, mariskamast.net where the cocaine market has actually expanded in recent years.


"We've had record cocaine seizures and that's produced great regard for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was identified in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that "naturally there may be some deliveries that were unnoticed."


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 not able to individually validate that.


Once a competitor to Milei as the presidential prospect 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 synthetic intelligence to track gangs.


In Rosario, according to local federal government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the most affordable in a minimum of the last years and down from nearly 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.


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


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


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


"There was a collective security effort by the national federal government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence instead of just having more cops on the streets, which is a far more feasible technique," 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 remove criminal networks, and said she has actually also gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.


In 2015, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and visited his mega-prison that holds tens of thousands of gang members in difficult conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have actually shown 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 state, less severe. But when we need to be difficult, we are difficult," said Bullrich.


TOUGHER BORDERS


Bullrich informed Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, planning sees 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 enhanced, asteroidsathome.net consisting of by constructing a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "absence of control over the last few years," she said.


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


Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away react to an ask for remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently welcomed the concept of enhancing border security in a reaction to the steps.


Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually brought Milei crucial center-ground assistance, said she had actually been won over to the libertarian's more comprehensive economic and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines but assisted support the nation.


The two are previous rivals. During the election race, Milei identified 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 financial pundit was emotionally unsteady.


Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting 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)