e.bike.free.fr

Patricia Bullrich states crackdown on drug gangs is succeeding


Cocaine exports to Europe have been blocked, she says


Murders in Rosario center least expensive in at least a years


By Lucinda Elliott


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


Argentina has actually grown in importance as a transit hub for cocaine as production from Peru and Bolivia has flowed 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 a rare interview with worldwide media, told 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, consisting of to Europe, where the cocaine market has actually broadened in current years.


"We have actually had record cocaine seizures which's generated excellent regard for us regionally and likewise in Europe, because (in 2024) no shipment from Argentina was identified in Europe," she said at her office in Buenos Aires, adding that "obviously there may be some shipments that were unnoticed."


The security ministry verified that cocaine was not discovered in any shipments that crossed the South Atlantic from Argentina to a major European port in 2024. Reuters was not able to independently validate 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, wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de privatizing some jails and using expert system to track gangs.


In Rosario, according to city government figures, murders dropped to 90 in 2015 - the least expensive in at least the last decade and down from nearly 300 in 2022 and fraternityofshadows.com 261 in 2023, the year before Milei and Bullrich took office.


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


"We eliminated the power that the drug employers 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 expert 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 nationwide federal government to focus on Rosario, with a concentrate 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 an expense to congress to develop a new anti-mafia law, similar to U.S. RICO legislation, to remove criminal networks, and said she has actually likewise gained from security forces in Britain and Italy.


Last year, she hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, and visited his mega-prison that holds tens of countless gang members in hard conditions that have actually drawn praise from hardline law-and-order political leaders and criticism from rights groups. Photos have shown rows of tattooed and topless inmates kneeling with their hands behind the heads.


"In our case, our system has actually been a little bit, let's state, less harsh. But when we have to be tough, we are tough," said Bullrich.


TOUGHER BORDERS


Bullrich told Reuters she was reinforcing border controls to stop drug gangs, preparing visits to cocaine-growing locations 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 strengthened, including by building a short stretch of wall in northern Salta province. Argentina is also doing more tracking of entry points with Brazil where there had been a "lack of control in current years," she said.


"We're going to start 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 an ask for comment. Brazil's Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, last week welcomed the concept of enhancing border security in an action to the measures.


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


The 2 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 movement - to which Bullrich had shot back that the former economic pundit was mentally unsteady.


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)