Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she says

Murders in Rosario center most affordable in at least a years

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on a mission to stamp out drug gangs in the South American country that have actually driven rising violence and resulted in a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She states she is prospering.

Argentina has actually grown in significance 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 hometown. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

Bullrich, in an uncommon interview with global media, told Reuters the year-old government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and obstructing deliveries from making their method to end markets, including to Europe, disgaeawiki.info where the cocaine market has actually expanded over the last few years.

"We have actually had record cocaine seizures which's generated terrific respect for us regionally and also in Europe, due to the fact that (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was detected in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, adding that "of course there might be some deliveries that were unnoticed."

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

Once a rival to Milei as the presidential candidate for the main conservative bloc, akropolistravel.com Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on crime, tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing expert system to track gangs.

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

"We decided to hit hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the nationwide and regional federal governments in Rosario had been a crucial factor, as well as the courts taking a tougher line. The federal government has also targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.

"We eliminated the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who used the jails to keep their drug crime rings going. We isolated them," she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence professional and president of local think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on gathering intelligence with aiding the criminal offense reduction.

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

Bullrich has sent out a costs to congress to develop a new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, and said she has actually likewise gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.

In 2015, chessdatabase.science she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and 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 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 actually been a little, let's state, less severe. 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 check outs to cocaine-growing areas in Peru, and improving cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and of Investigation.

Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being enhanced, including by developing a short 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 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 comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the concept of strengthening border security in a response to the measures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has brought Milei crucial center-ground assistance, said she had been won over to the libertarian's more comprehensive financial and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines however helped stabilize the nation.

The two are previous rivals. During the election race, Milei labeled her a leftist "bomb-thrower" - a recommendation to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist motion - to which Bullrich had actually shot back that the former economic pundit was emotionally unstable.

Bullrich said the differences were now behind them and she and her bloc were helping him as he seeks to gain seats in legislative mid-term elections set for forum.altaycoins.com 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; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O'Brien)