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Patricia Bullrich says crackdown on drug gangs is prospering

Cocaine exports to Europe have been blocked, she states

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

By Lucinda Elliott

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's security minister, is on a mission to stamp out drug gangs in the South American nation that have driven rising violence and classihub.in caused a spike in cocaine shipments 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 actually streamed down crucial waterways and out through river ports such as that of Rosario, Lionel Messi's home town. Gang-related murders increased in tandem.

Bullrich, in a rare interview with global media, informed Reuters the year-old federal government of libertarian President Javier Milei was separating the gangs and blocking deliveries from making their way 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 which's created terrific regard for us regionally and also in Europe, because (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was spotted in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, including that "of course there might be some deliveries that were unnoticed."

The security ministry verified that cocaine was not found in any deliveries that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was unable to independently verify that.

Once a rival to Milei as the presidential prospect for the main conservative bloc, Bullrich is now leading the crackdown on criminal activity, tightening up borders with Brazil and Bolivia, privatizing some jails and utilizing synthetic intelligence to track gangs.

In Rosario, according to local federal government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the most affordable in at least the last decade and oke.zone below almost 300 in 2022 and wiki.rolandradio.net 261 in 2023, hb9lc.org the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

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

"We took away the power that the drug managers had in the jails, who used the jails to keep their drug crime rings going. We isolated them," she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, kenpoguy.com an Argentine security and intelligence specialist and president of local think tank CRIES, credited a focus on event intelligence with aiding the criminal offense reduction.

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

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

In 2015, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and visited his mega-prison that holds 10s 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 actually shown rows of tattooed and partially nude prisoners kneeling with their hands behind the heads.

"In our case, our system has been a bit, let's state, less harsh. But when we need to be difficult, we are hard," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was reinforcing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing check outs to cocaine-growing areas in Peru, and increasing 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 building a brief stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had actually been a "lack of control over the last few years," she said.

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

Authorities in Bolivia and bbarlock.com Brazil did not right away react to an ask for remark. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently welcomed the concept of reinforcing border security in an action to the steps.

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

The two are former competitors. During the election race, Milei labeled her a "bomb-thrower" - a reference to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist motion - to which Bullrich had shot back that the previous economic pundit was mentally unsteady.

Bullrich said the differences were now behind them and she and her bloc were assisting him as he looks for bytes-the-dust.com 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)