“It’s them or us.” President Javier Milei has taken a front-line stance against the drug trade that weighs on Rosario, Argentina’s second-largest city and the birthplace of Lionel Messi’s remarkable journey. The new government has intensified federal deployments to confront a surge of violence that has touched ordinary people. Criminal rings have killed at random in response to harsh prison conditions that affect their leaders, and they warned the death toll could reach 300 in this pattern of terror. Official figures show that 2023 ended with 258 homicides, a consequence of gangs fighting for territory. In a public message, the groups declared they were uniting their firepower to terrorize Rosario. The government labeled them narcoterrorists. Milei warned that the pursuit would not stop this Sunday.
The anarcho-capitalist-leaning leader supports a social democratic framework that has governed the city, a setup tied to the rise of drug trafficking. Rosario sits about 400 kilometers north of Buenos Aires, with a population near 1.3 million and is part of Santa Fe province. The gangs recently declared the governor their foe, centrist-right leader Maximiliano Pullaro.
The situation, which spiked dramatically in 2023, worsened when footage emerged showing inmates serving sentences as soldiers and capos of these gangs who spread fear across numerous neighborhoods. The prisoners appeared as if in a prison in El Salvador, shirtless and seated in a line with heads bowed, as cell searches and isolation measures were filmed. The style associated with Nayib Bukele, a president admired by Milei and his security minister Patricia Bullrich, drew immediate reaction from outside the prisons. Rosario residents panicked, and streets emptied. Despite government announcements, few buses and taxis circulate. Gas stations see little activity. At night part of Rosario becomes a ghost town, while the riverfront district stays lively, preserving its late-night rituals just a few kilometers away.
Tripling Operations
Executive authorities have promised more contingents from the National Gendarmerie, the Federal Police, the Naval Prefecture, the Penitentiary Service, and the Airport Police. The government supports including the military in the fight against drug trafficking, even though they are restricted from acting in internal affairs. For now, they will only provide logistical support. The aim is to triple the operational activity of security forces, expand rewards for information leading to breakthroughs, and intensify vehicle and person checks, a move widely interpreted as the militarization of daily life. “We need the public to be ready to cooperate.”
Milei expressed confidence in the Sunday statement, saying, “With courage and effort the Federal Forces represent us across the country, and Argentina must stop being a safe harbor for hitmen and drug lords to become a country for the honest.”
“The ideologues and perpetrators of these acts, whom we do not hesitate to call terrorists, seek to reclaim privileges they once enjoyed: unlimited cell phone use, unrestricted intimate visits, and above all the ability to plan and commit crimes from inside prison walls,” said Pullaro. He won the provincial elections last October with a promise of a relentless, uncompromising approach. Rosario records the highest murder rate in the country, 22 per 100,000 inhabitants, far above the national average. In January 2023 there were 26 murders, compared with 15 in the same month this year. February 2023 saw 33 murders, while February 2024 dropped to seven. The current threats, now materialized in four killings, hint at a return to the worst violence levels. The governor pushes ahead with a high-security prison modeled after El Salvador’s system.
Exponential Growth
Experts say Rosario has become a spearhead in a new challenge to the state, infiltrating the penitentiary system, the courts, and even the police. A decade and a half earlier, Laura Etcharren, author of Esperando Las Maras, noted that conditions existed for dangerous criminal groups to expand. The central region of Argentina, including the capital and the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, where Rosario belongs, Córdoba, and Entre Ríos, accounts for about 65 percent of narcomarket violence in the country. In the northern zone, bordering Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay, about 70 percent of illicit substances enter. Rosario also hosts the country’s most important port, opening to the sea via the Paraná River. Analysts say drug consumption has reached levels comparable to many European capitals. Local groups operate with ties to powerful foreign networks, profiting from export and, above all, from retail drug sales.
In Rosario, journalists Germán de los Santos and Hernán Lascano dissect the city’s narco-mafia, revealing how crime and political power intertwine in broad daylight. Argentina remains a country where the dollar currency issue adds another layer of complexity, with the so-called banana dollar often more expensive than the parallel market blue dollar because it funds money laundering through construction projects. The power of crime stands tall in Rosario’s more affluent neighborhoods while gunfire echoes near luxury apartments and gated communities. [Attribution: Local reporting for context on Rosario’s crime dynamics].