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Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is being successful

Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been blocked, she says

Murders in Rosario hub most affordable in a minimum of a years

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, asteroidsathome.net Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on an objective to stamp out drug gangs in the South American nation that have actually driven rising violence and led to a spike in cocaine shipments to Europe. She states she is succeeding.

Argentina has grown in importance as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and wiki-tb-service.com Bolivia has flowed down crucial waterways and sitiosecuador.com 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 worldwide media, told Reuters the year-old government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and blocking shipments from making their method to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually expanded recently.

"We have actually had record cocaine seizures which's generated excellent regard for us regionally and also in Europe, because (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was detected in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, that "of course there might be some shipments that were undiscovered."

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

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

In Rosario, setiathome.berkeley.edu according to local government figures, murders dropped to 90 last year - the most affordable in a minimum of the last decade and below almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We chose to hit hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, adding that cooperation in between the national and regional federal governments in Rosario had been a key aspect, in addition to the courts taking a tougher line. The government has also targeted drug kingpins already behind bars.

"We removed the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who utilized the jails to keep their drug criminal offense rings going. We separated them," she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence specialist and president of regional think tank CRIES, credited an emphasis on gathering intelligence with aiding the criminal activity decrease.

"There was a concerted security effort by the nationwide federal government to prioritize Rosario, with a concentrate on criminal intelligence rather than just having more cops on the streets, which is a far more practical method," he said.

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

In 2015, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, drapia.org and visited his mega-prison that holds 10s of countless gang members in hard conditions that have actually 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 actually been a little, let's say, less extreme. But when we need to be difficult, we are difficult," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich told Reuters she was strengthening border controls to stop drug gangs, planning 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 enhanced, consisting of by constructing a brief 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 recently," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not instantly react to a demand for addsub.wiki remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the idea of enhancing border security in a reaction to the steps.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has brought Milei essential center-ground support, said she had been won over to the libertarian's wider economic and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have divided Argentines but helped stabilize the country.

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

Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting 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)