Hand in hand with the alignment of President Javier Milei to Washington, Argentina joined - at the beginning of the month - the FBI database called Vanguard to
exchange information in real time on international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering (especially with cryptocurrencies ) and other forms of organized crime
.
The Vanguard is “like
a virtual tripartite command
in real time that will allow the exchange of reports between the United States, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil,” a senior source from the Ministry of Security explained to Clarín.
And the FBI only shares it with allied governments.
“It is not limited to the Triple Border and drug trafficking, but to all dimensions and jurisdictions,” the source said.
Bullrich signed the agreement and “
force analysts are about to begin training so that in a few months it will begin to operate fully in a new facility
.”
In this context,
on Friday he met with US Ambassador Marc Stanley
to further increase cooperation in this sensitive matter of organized crime.
The Vanguard worked for Argentina, for the first time, in the case of the three terrorism suspects detained for the Maccabean games in Buenos Aires, but who Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti released last week due to lack of evidence.
These types of agreements are implemented through the International Office of Anti-Narcotics Affairs and the United States Attorney General's Office (INL).
Last Friday during a meeting between the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and Ambassador Marc Stanley,
it was agreed to increase training for Argentine security forces,
especially in matters of cryptocurrency traceability, money laundering, synthetic drugs, and international terrorism.
“We are proud of
our collaboration with Argentina
in the fight against terrorism, synthetic drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations,” Stanley wrote on Twitter.
The diplomat then said that “it has been a real pleasure to meet today with Minister Patricia Bullrich and her team
to evaluate our current collaborations and exchange ideas on future expansions
.”
The Toba Coast Guard of the Naval Prefecture began, this time, to patrol the Waterway near Rosario.
Photo: JUAN JOSE GARCIA - FTP CLARIN garcia21.jpg Z GarciaJJ Garcia-Rosario
The first to be trained, the Ministry of Security announced,
will be the members of the elite groups known as “Joint Operational Groups.”
They are made up of members of the four federal security forces.
The GOC were created by Bullrich in 2017 during the presidency of Mauricio Macri.
North American police cooperation
had decreased profoundly during the Cristina Kirchner presidencies and had little intensity under Alberto Fernández's administration,
but now it is growing again.
Especially in 2018 when former Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, at Cristina's direction,
opened the communications box with pliers
on a United States military plane, to investigate if he was bringing drugs.
Then, the former president reduced the presence of the DEA in Argentina, angry with former President Obama because she did not want to receive it.
In Friday's meeting between Bullrich and Stanley, the possibility of training, in particular,
for officers of the Argentine forces at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA)
, in the city of Roswell, New Mexico, USA, was analyzed.
The International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA)
are international police academies administered by the U.S. Department of State.
They train local police in counterterrorism, narcotics interdiction, fraudulent document detection, and security practices. border control.
There are four regional ILEAs located in the world: one in San Salvador, one in Budapest, one in Bangkok and one in Gaborone, Botswana.
The headquarters is in Roswell in New Mexico.
ILEA instructors are from the FBI;
the DEA and other organizations such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) headed by Eliot Ness, the police officer who managed to imprison Al Capone for tax evasion.
The first training sessions
will be for the Joint Operational Groups (GOC)
- which make up members of the Federal Police, Gendarmerie, Prefecture and Airport Security Police - and could also reach judges and prosecutors.
These elite groups operate in the Northeast with a base based in Posadas;
in the Northwest, in Salta and
in the Buenos Aires town of San Nicolás focused on the Hidrovía and Rosario.
The Hidrovía is the main entry route for marijuana arriving from Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay.
While it is planned to build
two more GOC bases in southern and northern Patagonia.
One dedicated to the maritime issue and complex crime and another to the challenges of Vaca Muerta and the border crossings with Chile, police sources explained.
During the meeting Bullrich and Stanley analyzed
with concern the increase in military cooperation between Bolivia and Iran and the situation of the fight against drug trafficking in Ecuador,
after the attempted coup by drug traffickers two weeks ago.
Regarding the MAS government of Luis Arce, in particular,
the Bolivian decision to request “minimum visas” from Iranians
entering its territory was analyzed.
The Argentine Justice accuses former Iranian officials of being the intellectual authors of the attacks against the Israeli embassy (1992) and the AMIA (1994).
For his part, Bullrich provided Stanley with
details of the deportation of the family of drug trafficker “Fito” Macías to Ecuador
and reiterated his offer of police help for the government of President Daniel Novoa, who signed a broad cooperation agreement against drug trafficking with the United States. .USA
for five years
.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Defense Minister Luis Petri monitor the deportation of the family of Ecuadorian drug trafficker "Fito" Macías last week.
The meeting also confirmed
the trip of the Undersecretary of Hemispheric Affairs, Brian A. Nichols
to Argentina next month to exchange information, especially by barrabravas, in relation to security during the 2024 Copa América in the United States.
Different topics were addressed, such as the exchange of training and
victim metrics
, for which the possibility of having the collaboration of the University of Virginia would result.
“Victim metrics” are statistics on crime reports to study their common parameters and try to identify their perpetrators.
Participating in Friday's meeting between Bullrich and Stanley were the Chief of Staff, Carlos Manfroni;
the Secretary of Security, Vicente Ventura Barreiro;
and the national director of Criminal Intelligence, Ricardo Ferrer Picado, among other officials.
Apart from the meeting with Stanley, Bullrich this week
focused on the recreation of the Intelligence Service of the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF).
This intelligence group had been closed by Kirchnerism for believing that they had leaked the audios of the K prisoners in the Ezeiza prison who carried out Operation Puf against the cause of the Cuadernos de las Bribes.
The lack of internal intelligence had allowed, for example, drug traffickers to continue managing their businesses from inside the prison units.
Thus Bullrich
ordered to isolate the most troublesome prisoners and it is being investigated whether some are related to the Red Command or PCC of Brazil
, the most dangerous drug group in South America that has already infiltrated Paraguay and is trying to do the same in Argentina.
Meanwhile, Bullrich “is also focused on
the transfer of prisoners from CABA City Police stations to federal spaces
and the construction and completion of prisons that are underway” at the request of his Buenos Aires colleague Waldo Wolff.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich travels the rivers of the Triple Border in a Prefectural gunboat.
For his part, the governor of Santa Fe, Maximiliano Pullaro "wants
to keep the new prison in Coronada, Santa Fe
, but Bullrich insists that it be managed by SPF personnel."
Bullrich's team
is on alert
because they discovered that a prisoner detained "in a federal establishment would be initiated into the PCC" and could be the lead to a larger organization.