Argentina Gang Crackdown has Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security

Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is prospering

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she states

Murders in Rosario hub least expensive in at least a decade

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on a mission to stamp out drug gangs in the South American country that have actually driven rising violence and larsaluarna.se 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 actually 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 uncommon interview with worldwide media, told Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and obstructing shipments from making their way to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually expanded recently.

"We've had record cocaine seizures and that's produced fantastic respect for us regionally and also in Europe, since (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was spotted in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that "obviously there might be some deliveries that were undetected."

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 unable to independently validate that.

Once a competitor to Milei as the presidential 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 using expert system 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 below nearly 300 in 2022 and pyra-handheld.com 261 in 2023, historydb.date the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.

"We chose to hit hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, adding that cooperation between the national and regional governments in Rosario had been an essential factor, as well as the courts taking a tougher line. The government has 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 isolated them," she said.

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

"There was a collective security effort by the national government to focus on Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence instead of just having more police on the streets, which is a far more practical strategy," he said.

Bullrich has sent a bill to congress to establish a 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 mega-prison that holds 10s of thousands of gang members in tough conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have revealed rows of tattooed and topless inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

"In our case, our system has actually been a little, let's say, less extreme. But when we have to be hard, we are difficult," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was strengthening border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing sees to cocaine-growing areas 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 constructing a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "lack of control in current years," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not instantly react to an ask for comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently invited the idea of enhancing border security in an action to the steps.

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

The 2 are former 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 actually shot back that the previous financial expert was mentally unstable.

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)