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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, sitiosecuador.com 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 increasing violence and resulted in a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She states she is succeeding.

Argentina has actually grown in importance as a transit hub for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has actually streamed 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 unusual interview with international media, told Reuters the year-old government of libertarian President Javier Milei was breaking up the gangs and from making their method to end markets, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has expanded in the last few years.

"We've had record cocaine seizures and that's generated fantastic respect for us regionally and likewise in Europe, since (in 2024) no delivery from Argentina was discovered in Europe," she said at her workplace in Buenos Aires, adding that "of course there may be some shipments that were undetected."

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

Once a rival to Milei as the governmental prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal offense, gratisafhalen.be tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing expert system to track gangs.

In Rosario, clashofcryptos.trade according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the most affordable in a minimum of the last decade and below nearly 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.

"We decided to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation in between the national and regional federal governments in Rosario had been an essential factor, along with the courts taking a harder line. The government has actually also 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 isolated them," she said.

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

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

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

Last year, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, setiathome.berkeley.edu and visited his mega-prison that holds 10s of countless gang members in hard conditions that have drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders 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 actually been a little, let's say, less harsh. But when we have to be hard, we are difficult," 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 improving 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 brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had been a "lack of control in the last few years," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not immediately react to a request for comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week invited the idea of strengthening border security in an action to the steps.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually brought Milei key center-ground assistance, wiki.rolandradio.net said she had actually been won over to the libertarian's wider economic 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, bphomesteading.com Milei identified her a leftist "bomb-thrower" - a referral to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist movement - to which Bullrich had actually shot back that the former financial pundit was emotionally unstable.

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)