Argentina’s narco capital sees mysterious drop in murders

Published on: 26/09/2024 – 07:09

3 minutes

Authorities claim the change is the result of a tougher crackdown on drug gangs, both on the streets and in prisons.

However, some believe that a tacit pact between the government and criminal organizations may explain the turnaround.

Rosario has a major port on the second longest river in South America after the Amazon, the Parana. This has made the city a hotspot for drug trafficking from Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay to Europe and Asia.

In this city, the third largest in Argentina, the murder rate has long been five times the national average, with up to 260 murders per year.

Even the families of famous residents such as Messi or fellow footballer Angel Di Maria have faced violent threats or attacks from criminal organisations.

But since late 2023, when President Javier Milei took office and declared a zero-tolerance policy for crime, everything seems to have changed.

At the same time, the province of Santa Fe, where Rosario is located, had a new governor: Maximiliano Pullaro.

Pullaro immediately imposed tougher conditions on prisoners, particularly gang leaders, and published photographs of prison raids and overpowered prisoners.

His actions earned him some 30 death threats in his first months in office and led to a backlash from gangs, who murdered four civilians in March.

Milei then sent federal police and troops to Rosario.

‘tacit agreement’

According to a report from the Ministry of National Security, the murder rate in Rosario fell by 62 percent between January and August compared to the same period last year.

“In Rosario we have the lowest number of murders in 17 years,” said Security Minister Patricia Bullrich.

“We said we would bring order to the prisons and to the streets. And that’s what we did,” added Pullaro, who is accused of imitating the hardline, gang-busting tactics of El Salvador’s popular President Nayib Bukele.

However, experts are skeptical whether these measures alone have led to the rapid decline in the homicide rate.

Former Santa Fe Security Minister Marcelo Sain, who also has a doctorate in social sciences, believes there was “an agreement” between the state and the criminal world in which “the killing of people stopped.”

“There is no other explanation, because there is no other policy in the world that reduces the number of homicides so much,” he added.

Ariel Larroude, director of the Criminal Policy Observatory at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), said the decline in violence was “striking” because “drug use continues to increase.”

“This could be the result of an exceptional success in criminal justice policy” based on “a reorganization” of the police and prison system, he said.

But it is also possible that this involves a ‘tacit deal with the gangs to reduce violence, while (the government) turns a blind eye to drug sales.’

Larroude said this could simply mean that police would stop controlling certain street corners or neighborhoods.

On the ground, feelings are mixed.

“We see more police, but everything remains the same,” said Sandra Arce, a 46-year-old mother who runs a soup kitchen in the Boca neighborhood

“On the streets the situation remains the same: they rob you, they steal things from you, they shoot,” she added.

However, she is happy that a local drug-selling hotspot across the street from her soup kitchen has recently disappeared.

© 2024 AFP