Argentina Gang Crackdown has Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security

Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is prospering

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she states

Murders in Rosario hub lowest in at least 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 nation that have driven increasing violence and caused a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She says she is prospering.

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

Bullrich, in an unusual interview with global media, told Reuters the year-old federal 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 actually broadened recently.

"We have actually had record cocaine seizures and that's produced fantastic respect for us regionally and likewise in Europe, because (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was found in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, adding that "obviously there might be some shipments that were unnoticed."

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

Once a rival to Milei as the governmental candidate for surgiteams.com the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on crime, tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and wiki.vifm.info using 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 decade and below almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We chose to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the national and local governments in Rosario had been an essential element, along with the courts taking a tougher line. The government has actually also targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

"We eliminated the power that the drug managers 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 local think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on event intelligence with aiding the criminal activity reduction.

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

Bullrich has actually sent out a costs to congress to develop a brand-new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, oke.zone to remove criminal networks, and said she has actually likewise 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 countless gang members in difficult conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have actually revealed rows of tattooed and partially nude prisoners kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

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

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing sees to cocaine-growing areas 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, consisting of by constructing a brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "absence of control in the last few years," 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, last week welcomed the concept of enhancing border security in a reaction to the procedures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has brought Milei essential center-ground support, 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 2 are former rivals. During the election race, Milei identified her a leftist "bomb-thrower" - a referral to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist motion - to which Bullrich had actually shot back that the former financial pundit was emotionally unstable.

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.

"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)