Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is prospering

Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been obstructed, she states

Murders in Rosario center most affordable in at least a decade

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, 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 succeeding.

Argentina has grown in value as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has actually 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, morphomics.science in an unusual interview with global media, informed Reuters the year-old government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and blocking shipments from making their method to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually broadened in current years.

"We’ve had record cocaine seizures which’s produced excellent respect for us regionally and likewise in Europe, since (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was identified in Europe,” she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that “obviously there may be some shipments that were undiscovered.“

The security ministry verified that cocaine was not found 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 rival to Milei as the governmental candidate for botdb.win the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on crime, bphomesteading.com 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 last year - the most affordable in at least the last years and below nearly 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We chose to hit hard against the gangs,” Bullrich said, adding that cooperation in between the national and local federal governments in Rosario had been an essential factor, as well as the courts taking a tougher line. The government has likewise targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

"We removed the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who utilized the jails to keep their drug criminal offense rings going. We isolated them,” she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence expert 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 nationwide government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than just having more authorities on the streets, which is a much more feasible strategy,” he said.

Bullrich has sent out a bill to congress to establish a new anti-mafia law, comparable to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, and 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 tens of countless gang members in hard 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 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 severe. But when we need to be difficult, we are hard,” said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, planning visits to cocaine-growing locations 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 strengthened, including by constructing a brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more monitoring 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 strategy, we’re taking soldiers to the border area with Brazil,” she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away react to a demand imoodle.win for remark. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the idea of reinforcing border security in a reaction to the steps.

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, which have actually divided Argentines however helped stabilize the nation.

The two are former rivals. During the election race, Milei labeled her a leftist “bomb-thrower” - a reference to her time with the youth wing of the - to which Bullrich had shot back that the previous financial expert was mentally unstable.

Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and utahsyardsale.com she and her bloc were helping him as he seeks to gain seats in legislative mid-term elections set for later on this year.

"We’re more libertarian than conservative now,” she said.

(Reporting by Lucinda Elliott. Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and thatswhathappened.wiki Daniel Ramos in La Paz