Argentina is no longer a transit country, but a drug producing nation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mónica Cuñarro, the prosecutor who created the first unit specialized in drug trafficking and complex crimes of the UFIDRO, addressed different aspects of one of the main problems affecting Argentina: drug trafficking.

When asked about the 24 deaths caused by poisoned cocaine in the Conurbano, the specialist stated that there is no precedent in the country of so many people dead and intoxicated in critical condition.”

]Something like that had only happened at the electronic party (Time Warp) in the federal capital, where five young people died and more than two dozen were intoxicated by chemical drugs,” she recalled in an interview with Eduardo Feinmann in “Alguien tiene que decir” on Radio Mitre.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Argentina

In this context, the prosecutor acknowledged the work of the Buenos Aires Security Minister Sergio Berni and of several authorities who, during the crisis, asked consumers to discard the adulterated drugs.

“If the Argentine National Team match had been on a Friday, we would be tripling the numbers of this tragedy. The fact that it was on a Thursday had something to do with it not being worse,” she said.

EL PAISA, A DRUG BOSS?

Justice quickly arrested “El Paisa” and the government ordered his expulsion from the country. The investigators believe that he is the dealer who sold the poisoned drug that caused the tragedy in Puerta 8. Cuñarro relativized the importance of the suspect in the scheme: “If ‘El Paisa’ is a drug dealer, I am Angela Merkel”, she ironized.

And she explained: “I say that ‘El Paisa’ is a criminal, a wretch. Do you think an emptied Versa pistol, 15,000 doses, and not even 30,000 pesos is the head of a mega-narcotics organization? Of course, he is a criminal, but this is drug dealing.

In this sense, the prosecutor explained that Argentina ceased to be “a consolidated transit country” during the pandemic to become a region where “there are more laboratories” and drug manufacturing kitchens to meet the increased demand.

Cuñarro recalled that in 2005 her unit prepared several documents signed by judges and other organizations that warned that the de-federalization would generate the penetration of corruption in the provincial forces and an advance of the narco-police that provide protection. For example, she revealed that criminal organizations currently pay ARS 1.5 million (US$14,000) per week to the officers who provide them with protection.

The prosecutor denounced that there are also politicians linked to drug trafficking. “I can destroy one, 10, or 100 bunkers, but there is one aspect that they don’t want to touch. That money produced must be returned to the market in a white form, and there the people of the poor neighborhoods do not intervene; there are the financiers, accountants, loan sharks, businesses, some construction companies. No progress has been made in this area. If you want to attack drug trafficking, you have to follow the money trail,” she warned.

For Cuñarro, in Argentina, “there is a criminal mega-organization in which drug traffickers, police, politicians, some judges, and even some prosecutors participate”.

In this sense, she expressed her concern about the bunker prisons, where detained drug traffickers continue to command their gangs from inside the jails. “Guille Cantero, the leader of Los Monos, has convictions for local crimes. In the cell next door are (Esteban Lindor) Alvarado and (Estrada Gonzales) Marcos. We have to stop doing this. I don’t know why all these people are in the same prison (Marcos Paz). If they have telephones, it is because there is corruption in the Penitentiary Service. That has to be stopped,” she demanded.

LEGALIZATION, NO

The case of poisoned cocaine prompted different leaders to promote the legalization of drugs because they consider that the prohibitionist system has failed. Cuñarro said she disagrees.

“I disagree with legalization, objectively and with scientific data. If you have no state capacity to regulate the diversion of medicines, the diversion of precursors -even though you have the ANMAT- imagine what it could be like to legalize all illegal drugs. It would be a disaster”, she analyzed.

“If you tell me about marijuana, with an open registry, pharmacies and pharmacists’ associations with a controlled registry, it could have the effect of removing from the market the marijuana that comes mixed with any garbage and toxicity of all kinds, mainly from Paraguay. That way, you take the business away from that part of the drug trafficking. I would look for a model like Uruguay or Portugal,” she added.

However, Cuñarro warned that this could provoke more dangerous situations, where the gangs or narco-police, “in 48 hours would put bombs in the ANMAT or machine-gun the pharmacies; I do not know what could happen, because it is a massive business”.

For Cuñarro, the fact that a child starts taking drugs at such an early age “is an adult problem, and it is a problem of the State. Let’s stop being hypocrites. There has to be a national plan to detect local gangs, follow the route of money, weapons, the issue of asphalt piracy,” she said. And on the demand side, “we must have a prevention, treatment and rehabilitation plan. A socio-health approach that involves the Ministries of Labor and Education”.

On the other hand, the prosecutor revealed that her unit conducted an extensive national survey to determine what was being consumed. The result was alarming: alcohol had decreased at 14 to 15 years old. She also said that drug interactions had expanded to other social sectors with greater purchasing power.

“When we saw that alcohol consumption had dropped to 14 years of age, we made a project, all the provinces except the city of Buenos Aires adhered and what started to happen: people came to buy in the Federal Capital, and people appeared intoxicated at the Fernandez Hospital due to alcohol intake”, she detailed.

Finally, she recalled what happened with a group of parents who worked together with schools and the Church: “From Friday to Sunday they put the children with the physical education teachers and made them play six games of anything, basketball, soccer, everything. If any of those kids came back for having consumed alcohol, the teacher would take them off the court first for 15 minutes so that they would not be able to stand it, and then he would take all the kids to the locker room to show them what happens when you abuse. It is something that should be taken up again”, she concluded.