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Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding

Cocaine exports to Europe have actually been blocked, she says

Murders in Rosario center least expensive in a minimum of a years

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 actually driven rising violence and resulted in a spike in cocaine deliveries to Europe. She says she is prospering.

Argentina has grown in significance as a transit center for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has actually flowed down key 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 breaking up the gangs and obstructing shipments from making their method to end markets, including to Europe, where the cocaine market has broadened recently.

"We have actually had record cocaine seizures and that's generated great respect 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 "naturally there might be some deliveries that were unnoticed."

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 not able to independently verify 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 expert system 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 below almost 300 in 2022 and 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took workplace.

"We decided to strike hard against the gangs," Bullrich said, fishtanklive.wiki adding that cooperation between the nationwide and regional federal governments in Rosario had actually been a key factor, in addition to the courts taking a tougher line. The federal government has actually also 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 offense rings going. We separated them," she said.

Andrei Serbin Pont, an Argentine security and intelligence expert and president of local think tank CRIES, credited a focus on event intelligence with aiding the criminal activity decrease.

"There was a collective security effort by the nationwide federal government to focus on Rosario, with a concentrate on criminal intelligence rather than simply having more authorities on the streets, which is a a lot more feasible method," he said.

Bullrich has actually sent an expense 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 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 thousands of gang members in hard conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have revealed 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 extreme. But when we need to be difficult, we are tough," said Bullrich.

TOUGHER BORDERS

Bullrich informed Reuters she was reinforcing border controls to stop drug gangs, outs to cocaine-growing areas 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 developing a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is likewise doing more monitoring of entry points with Brazil where there had been a "absence 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 location with Brazil," she said.

Authorities in Bolivia and Brazil did not right away react to a request for comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, recently invited the concept of enhancing border security in a response to the procedures.

Bullrich, a political veteran who has actually 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 actually divided Argentines however helped stabilize the nation.

The 2 are former competitors. During the election race, Milei identified her a leftist "bomb-thrower" - a recommendation to her time with the youth wing of the Peronist motion - to which Bullrich had shot back that the previous financial pundit 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 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