Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been blocked, 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 an objective to mark out drug gangs in the South American nation that have actually driven rising violence and vmeste-so-vsemi.ru caused a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She says she is being successful.

Argentina has actually grown in importance as a transit center 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 home town. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

Bullrich, in an unusual interview with international media, informed Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and blocking deliveries from making their way to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has expanded over the last few years.

"We’ve had record cocaine seizures and that’s created terrific respect for us regionally and likewise in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was discovered in Europe,” she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that “obviously there might 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 major European port in 2024. Reuters was not able to separately verify that.

Once a rival to Milei as the for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal offense, tightening up borders with Brazil and forum.pinoo.com.tr Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing expert system to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to regional federal government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year - the most affordable in at least the last years and down from almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.

"We chose to hit hard against the gangs,” Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the national and regional federal governments in Rosario had been an essential aspect, in addition to the courts taking a harder line. The government has actually likewise targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

"We took away the power that the drug managers 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 professional and president of local think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on event intelligence with aiding the crime reduction.

"There was a collective security effort by the national government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more authorities on the streets, which is a a lot more feasible method,” he said.

Bullrich has actually sent a bill to congress to develop a new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to take down criminal networks, and engel-und-waisen.de 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 actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians and criticism from rights groups. Photos have shown rows of tattooed and partially nude prisoners kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

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

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was strengthening border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing check outs to cocaine-growing areas 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 short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had been a “absence of control recently,” she said.

"We’re going to start a program, a plan, we’re taking soldiers to the border location with Brazil,” she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away respond to an ask for comment. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently invited the idea of enhancing border security in a reaction to the measures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually brought Milei crucial center-ground support, said she had been won over to the libertarian’s wider economic and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines but helped support the country.

The 2 are previous rivals. During the election race, Milei identified her a leftist “bomb-thrower” - a referral to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist movement - to which Bullrich had actually shot back that the former financial expert was mentally unsteady.

Bullrich said the differences 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