Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is prospering

Cocaine exports to Europe have been blocked, she says

Murders in Rosario hub 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 driven increasing violence and resulted in a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She states she is prospering.

Argentina has grown in significance as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and kenpoguy.com Bolivia has streamed down key 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 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 method to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually broadened in the last few years.

“We have actually had record cocaine seizures and that’s produced excellent regard for us regionally and also in Europe, since (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was detected in Europe,” she said at her office in Buenos Aires, including that “naturally there may be some shipments that were undetected.”

The security ministry verified that cocaine was not found in any shipments that the South Atlantic from Argentina to a significant European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to independently verify that.

Once a rival to Milei as the presidential prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal activity, tightening borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and using synthetic intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the least expensive in a minimum of the last decade and down from almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

“We decided to strike hard against the gangs,” Bullrich said, adding that cooperation between the nationwide and regional governments in Rosario had been an essential aspect, as well as the courts taking a harder line. The government has actually also targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.

“We took away 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, an Argentine security and intelligence professional and president of regional think tank CRIES, credited a focus on event intelligence with aiding the criminal offense reduction.

“There was a collective security effort by the national federal government to prioritize Rosario, with a concentrate on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more police on the streets, which is a much more feasible method,” he said.

Bullrich has sent an expense to congress to establish a brand-new anti-mafia law, akin to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, chessdatabase.science and said she has likewise gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.

Last year, she hosted El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, and wiki.eqoarevival.com visited his mega-prison that holds 10s of thousands of gang members in tough conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have revealed rows of tattooed and partially nude prisoners kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

“In our case, our system has been a bit, let’s say, less harsh. But when we have to be tough, we are difficult,” said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing 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 enhanced, consisting of by building a brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a “absence of control in current 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 immediately react to a request for comment. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week welcomed the concept of reinforcing border security in a response to the measures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually brought Milei key center-ground assistance, said she had actually been won over to the libertarian’s wider financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines however assisted support the nation.

The 2 are former rivals. During the election race, [users.atw.hu](http://users.atw.hu/samp-info-forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d09d528edb62fda78d40f9aaa01734b0&action=profile