Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is being successful

Cocaine exports to Europe have been obstructed, she says

Murders in Rosario hub least expensive in at least 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 driven increasing violence and led to a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She says she is prospering.

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

Bullrich, forum.pinoo.com.tr in an uncommon interview with global 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, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually broadened in the last few years.

"We've had record cocaine seizures which's created excellent regard for us regionally and also in Europe, because (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was identified in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, adding that "obviously there may be some shipments that were undetected."

The security ministry confirmed that cocaine was not discovered in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a significant European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to individually confirm that.

Once a competitor to Milei as the governmental prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on crime, tightening borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing artificial intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, wavedream.wiki according to regional federal government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the lowest in at least the last years and below almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We decided to hit hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the national and local governments in Rosario had actually been a crucial element, demo.qkseo.in along with the courts taking a tougher line. The government has actually likewise targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

"We removed 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 regional think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on event intelligence with aiding the criminal activity decrease.

"There was a collective security effort by the national federal government to prioritize Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than just having more police on the streets, which is a much more practical technique," he said.

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

In 2015, photorum.eclat-mauve.fr she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and his mega-prison that holds 10s of thousands of gang members in difficult conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have shown rows of tattooed and topless inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

"In our case, our system has actually been a little, let's state, less extreme. But when we need to be difficult, we are tough," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

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

Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being strengthened, consisting of by constructing a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "lack of control in recent years," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away respond to an ask for remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently invited the idea of reinforcing border security in a response to the procedures.

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

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

Bullrich said the differences were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting him as he seeks to gain seats in legal 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)