Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is being successful
Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been obstructed, she says
Murders in Rosario center least expensive 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 driven rising violence and led to a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She says she is prospering.
Argentina has actually grown in importance as a transit hub for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has streamed 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 an unusual interview with international media, informed 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, championsleage.review where the cocaine market has expanded over the last few years.
"We've had record cocaine seizures and that's created excellent respect for us regionally and also in Europe, since (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was found in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, adding that "of course there may be some shipments that were undetected."
The security ministry verified 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 separately validate that.
Once a rival to Milei as the governmental prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal offense, tightening borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and using synthetic intelligence to track gangs.
In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the most affordable in at least the last decade and down from nearly 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.
"We chose to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, including that cooperation between the nationwide and local governments in Rosario had actually been a factor, along with the courts taking a tougher line. The federal government has actually likewise targeted drug kingpins currently behind bars.
"We took away the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who used the jails to keep their drug criminal offense rings going. We isolated them," she said.
Andrei Serbin Pont, historydb.date an Argentine security and intelligence specialist and president of regional think tank CRIES, credited a focus on gathering intelligence with aiding the criminal offense decrease.
"There was a collective security effort by the national federal government to focus on Rosario, with a focus on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more authorities on the streets, which is a much more feasible method," he said.
Bullrich has actually sent out a costs to congress to establish a brand-new anti-mafia law, akin to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, and wiki.die-karte-bitte.de said she has also gained from security forces in Britain and wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de Italy.
In 2015, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and visited his mega-prison that holds tens of countless 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 inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.
"In our case, our system has been a little, let's say, less harsh. But when we have to be difficult, we are difficult," said Bullrich.
TOUGHER BORDERS
Bullrich informed Reuters she was enhancing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing check outs to cocaine-growing areas in Peru, and enhancing cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bullrich said the border with Bolivia was being enhanced, 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 been a "lack of control recently," she said.
"We're going to begin a program, a strategy, we're taking troops to the border location with Brazil," she said.
Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away react to an ask for wiki.eqoarevival.com remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently welcomed the idea of strengthening border security in a response to the measures.
Bullrich, tandme.co.uk a political veteran who has actually brought Milei crucial center-ground assistance, said she had been won over to the libertarian's more comprehensive economic and social reforms beyond his security focus, which have actually divided Argentines however helped support 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 movement - to which Bullrich had shot back that the former economic expert was emotionally unstable.
Bullrich said the distinctions were now behind them and forum.altaycoins.com she and her bloc were assisting him as he looks for to gain seats in legislative mid-term elections set for 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
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Argentina Gang Crackdown has Dried Up Cocaine Exports, Security
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