Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she says

Murders in Rosario hub most affordable in at least a decade

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 country that have actually driven increasing violence and led to a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She states she is prospering.

Argentina has grown in importance as a transit hub 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, in an uncommon interview with worldwide media, informed Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and obstructing deliveries from making their way to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has expanded in the last few years.

“We’ve had record cocaine seizures and that’s produced terrific respect for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was spotted in Europe,” she said at her office in Buenos Aires, drapia.org adding that “of course there might be some deliveries that were undiscovered.”

The security ministry confirmed that cocaine was not discovered in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to individually validate 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 artificial intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the most affordable in at least the last years and down from nearly 300 in 2022 and forum.altaycoins.com 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.

“We chose to hit hard against the gangs,” Bullrich said, including that cooperation in between the nationwide and local federal governments in Rosario had actually been an essential factor, galgbtqhistoryproject.org as well as the courts taking a harder line. The federal government has also targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

“We eliminated the power that the drug bosses 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 expert 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 nationwide government to focus on Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than just having more authorities on the streets, which is a far more practical technique,” he said.

Bullrich has sent an expense to congress to establish a brand-new anti-mafia law, akropolistravel.com similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to take down criminal networks, and asystechnik.com 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 tough conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians 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 been a bit, let’s state, less harsh. But when we need to be difficult, we are difficult,” said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing check outs to cocaine-growing areas in Peru, and improving cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being strengthened, including by building a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had been a “lack of control in current years,” she said.

“We’re going to begin a program, a strategy, we’re taking soldiers to the border location with Brazil,” she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not instantly respond to an ask for comment. Brazil’s Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week welcomed the concept of reinforcing border security in a response 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 wider financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines however helped support the nation.

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

Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and asteroidsathome.net she and thatswhathappened.wiki her bloc were helping him as he looks for to gain seats in legal 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 Daniel Ramos in La Paz