Argentina Gang Crackdown has actually Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security

Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she states

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

By Lucinda Elliott

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

Argentina has grown in importance as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has streamed down key 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 worldwide media, informed Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and blocking deliveries from making their way to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has broadened in the last few years.

"We've had record cocaine seizures which's generated terrific respect for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was spotted in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that "obviously there may be some deliveries that were undiscovered."

The security ministry confirmed that cocaine was not discovered in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was not able to independently 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 borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing artificial intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year - the most affordable in a minimum of the last years and below almost 300 in 2022 and morphomics.science 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We chose to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, adding that cooperation in between the national 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 also targeted drug kingpins currently 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, macphersonwiki.mywikis.wiki an Argentine security and intelligence professional and president of local think tank CRIES, credited a focus on event intelligence with aiding the crime decrease.

"There was a collective security effort by the nationwide government to prioritize Rosario, with a concentrate on criminal intelligence instead of just having more authorities on the streets, which is a much more feasible strategy," he said.

Bullrich has sent a costs to congress to establish a brand-new anti-mafia law, akin to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, wiki.myamens.com and oke.zone 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 countless gang members in hard conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have revealed rows of tattooed and partially nude inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

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

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was strengthening border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing visits 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 reinforced, including by developing a brief 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 recently," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and historydb.date Brazil did not immediately respond 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 measures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has brought Milei essential center-ground assistance, said she had actually been won over to the libertarian's broader financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, wiki.rolandradio.net which have divided Argentines but helped stabilize the nation.

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

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