Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is being successful

Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been blocked, she says

Murders in Rosario center lowest 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 states she is succeeding.

Argentina has actually grown in value as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has actually flowed down key waterways and out through river ports such as that of Rosario, Lionel Messi's hometown. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

Bullrich, in a rare interview with worldwide media, told Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and blocking deliveries from making their method to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually expanded over the last few years.

"We have actually had record cocaine seizures and that's created excellent regard for us regionally and likewise in Europe, since (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was discovered in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, surgiteams.com adding that "of course there may be some shipments that were undiscovered."

The security ministry verified 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 verify that.

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

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

"We eliminated the power that the drug employers had in the jails, who utilized the jails to keep their drug criminal activity rings going. We separated them," she said.

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

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

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

In 2015, bio.rogstecnologia.com.br she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, forum.batman.gainedge.org and visited his mega-prison that holds tens of thousands of gang members in hard conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians 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 little, let's state, less extreme. But when we need to be tough, we are difficult," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, planning check outs to cocaine-growing locations 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 constructing a short 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 over the last few years," she said.

"We're going to start a program, a plan, we're taking troops to the border area with Brazil," she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not instantly respond to an ask for remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the idea of strengthening border security in a response to the measures.

Bullrich, wiki.whenparked.com a political veteran who has brought Milei key 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 actually divided Argentines but helped stabilize the nation.

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

Bullrich said the distinctions 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 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; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O'Brien)