“It is giving results, we are on the right path,” says Patricia Bullrich when receiving Clarín
to
present the results of the first month of the Bandera Operational Plan, with which they seek to reduce violence in
Rosario
.
The minister points to a map.
She focuses on four neighborhoods: Empalme Granero, Ludueña, Tablada and General Las Heras.
These are the four hottest areas for which the Municipality and the Province of Santa Fe asked the Ministry of Security for support.
“
In these areas,
homicides on public roads have decreased by 57%
compared to January 2023;
In the rest of Rosario, they dropped 35%,” says Bullrich.
The Bandera Plan, as the security operation was called that since January 2 seeks to reinforce the security of Rosario and surrounding areas, is a deployment of 3,050 men from the four federal security forces (Gendarmery, Naval Prefecture, Federal Police and Airport Security) and 2,800 investigation agents that the same forces had at their disposal.
This assigned personnel adds to the objectives that the Santa Fe Police and the municipality of Rosario pursue: alleviating the violence with which
criminal organizations shake the city almost daily
.
Federico Angelini, Undersecretary of Federal Intervention, is in charge of uniting the efforts between the different forces and institutions involved.
“The Bandera Plan has two aspects, one quantitative and the other qualitative.
Quantitative, because it is a saturation operation, of presence, not only in Rosario, but also in nearby areas.
But it is qualitative, because it is focused on
areas that the Santa Fe Police highlighted to us as the most affected by violence
.
But the assigned troops do not patrol, but carry out operations, interventions after intelligence work.”
More than 3,000 federal forces agents patrol Rosario as part of the Bandera Plan.
Among his papers, he points out the results of the first month: 95 cars seized among a total of 31,390 seized;
216 motorcycles seized, out of a total of 31,783 controlled;
84 people arrested in total.
Almost a ton of 28% ammonia – a chemical precursor – and more than fifty kilos of cocaine confiscated;
29 arrested for causes related to drug trafficking.
“However,” says the minister, “
the criminal gangs have become multi-purpose organizations
: in addition to drug trafficking, they are dedicated to money laundering and, above all, the
extortion of merchants
.”
The latter is what worries us most currently, what most disturbs the order of the city.”
During the last few years in Rosario, there has been an increase in the complaints that merchants make for receiving intimidation, extortion and other forms of intimidation, such as shootings in front of their businesses or homes.
Both the minister and the advisors who accompanied her at the meeting (Martín Verrier, Sebastián García de Luca and Vicente Ventura Barreiro) express the feeling that the shootings have decreased in intensity.
Although they still do not have this data, which the Santa Fe Police is responsible for monitoring, they observe, they say, a relationship with the decrease in homicides on public roads.
“Another thing to take into account is the presence of the different forces in the streets of Rosario, which is greater.
They no longer dare to go out and shoot in the air, or even to go out armed
,” says the minister.
She watches, from her place at the table and out of the corner of her eye, television images: a repetition of the demonstrations in Congress last week.
“Enough of this.”
Bullrich during the launch of the Bandera Plan in Rosario, together with Maximiliano Pullaro and Pablo Javkin.
He adds that the motivation and responsibility for the success of this operation refers to an initiative of his Ministry, although it has the support of Javier Milei.
“The President wants to accompany economic success with social order in the streets,” he highlights.
—What is the homicide rate that you are trying to reach with this operation?
—In 2019, in my previous administration as Minister of Security, we had reached a rate of 8 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants in Rosario
.
Currently, the city's index is 22, and the national average is 5.
Rosario is five times above the average.
We seek, with a lot of work, to appease the city's indicators, to bring peace of mind to the people.
—And until when will the Bandera Plan continue?
—Until Rosario is a normal, quiet city.
The plan is annual and extendable, but it contemplates collaboration between different institutions: the federal security forces, but also the Sedronar (to control the trafficking of chemical precursors), the Anmac (to control the carrying of weapons), the control of the waterway.
It is a flexible plan, which adjusts to the modalities of the crime that arise.
Intelligence, says Bullrich, is very important for his plan: in addition to the street, he works on prisons, especially maximum security ones.
In addition to launching a protocol for high-risk prisoners, he is working to disrupt the operations of drug lords and other organizations from prisons.
There is some concern in the Santa Fe prison system, since they have information that there are
possible infiltrations of the
Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)
, a Brazilian criminal gang, in the Piñero and Las Flores prisons.
There are more than a hundred investigations into the case.
And he adds, finally, that he is working in collaboration with the province of Buenos Aires to provide intelligence support (but not saturation) to try to also reduce the violence of crimes in this province.
MG