The war for control of the drug trade in Rosario, Argentina, has transformed the city into a hub for violence and is rooted in pacts between gangs, politicians, and police, according to a new book.
Rosario, Argentina’s third-largest city, recorded 259 homicides in 2023, or 22 per 100,000 inhabitants. This is five times the national average, according to figures from the Public Safety Observatory (Observatorio de Seguridad Pública), part of Santa Fe’s Ministry of Security, cited by La Nación.
The wave of violence began in 2013, but Rosario has long been an enclave for Argentina’s illicit industries. For decades, cocaine and other drugs have arrived in the city from the north of the country, or been shipped along the Paraná River to the Port of Rosario, before being sent to Europe or Africa.
Illicit drugs also stay in the city, flooding the local market and helping family drug clans consolidate their operations. Coupled with endemic corruption, the drug trade has turned Rosario into a war zone.
InSight Crime spoke with Germán de Los Santos, co-author of “Rosario: The Story Behind the Narco Mafia That Took Over the City.” The recently published book seeks to explain the evolution of organized crime in Rosario and detail links between elites and criminal gangs.
InSight Crime (IC): Violence is not good for criminal groups seeking stability, so why do homicides in Rosario continue to rise?
Germán de los Santos (GdlS): There are no episodes of violence around large cocaine shipments because that would make them visible. Rather, violence revolves around street-level drug dealing because territorial control is essential to selling drugs. These [local] groups do not have an impact on the much larger business of transnational cocaine trafficking. In Rosario, the “managers” of this business are international groups, not the locals.
IC: So international drug trafficking and local drug dealing are separate?
GdlS: They appear to be parallel universes. Local drug peddling has driven the escalation of violence in Rosario for the last ten years. But there’s also cocaine trafficking to ports in Europe, Africa, Asia, and so on. So far, those two universes have not overlapped. I think the greatest risk in Rosario is the possibility that local gangs might someday decide to permeate the international business.
IC: The book recounts cinematic moments in Rosario’s criminal history, including the failed helicopter prison break by notorious drug trafficker, Esteban Alvarado. It also includes references to “The Godfather” and “Scarface.” How much does Hollywood influence real-life organized crime in Argentina?
GdlS: I think it has a certain impact. Often, criminals make plans based on ideals that emerge from fiction. Crime in Argentina has plenty of cinematic elements, but it is also very real. The helicopter escape failed because the pilot betrayed his boss. You can also hear how movies influence dialogue [between criminals]. When Alvarado said “I am a bank, don’t worry about the money”… it sounded like something from a movie, but it’s totally real.
IC: Even the most powerful groups in Argentina are weaker than their counterparts in neighboring countries. Why have Rosario’s clans failed to expand beyond the city?
GdlS: It’s because they’re very fragmented. Today, the Monos are divided into five groups. Over time, they have failed to create a strong clan, instead splitting into sub-gangs that share the same name but have no central power. Their business is financially precarious. They lack a strategy for forming a gang with presence in different provinces. It would complicate things for them.
Why Are Murders Spreading Across Argentina’s Most Violent City?
IC: Do you think integration between criminal and legal markets is influencing Rosario’s economy. Would the economy collapse if drug trafficking suddenly ceased?
GdlS: One criminal economy in particular has grown considerably in the last five years: extortion. This business operates via a more traditional mafia model, but it is controlled by gangs that dominate drug dealing in Rosario.
Extortion has increased because it generates significant income at a very low risk. Unlike drug dealing, which requires greater logistics to purchase and distribute narcotics, extortion groups can recruit youths with motorcycles and guns to patrol the area and collect money. The rise of extortion has spawned a VIP security business with armored cars. Situations previously unthinkable in Argentina are now becoming reality.
Today, Argentina’s informal economy runs parallel to the formal one. Illegal dollars drive the economy, allowing criminal groups to generate massive revenues by channelling money through informal financial spaces that later penetrate formal businesses like real estate.
IC: Do you think the new government’s plans to change the prison system will have any impact?
GdlS: [When the changes began to be implemented], there was a regrouping of high-profile prisoners from the Monos and other smaller gangs. They first responded with attacks in which they made threats against Rosario’s governor. The strategy at the national and provincial levels will be to create specific areas within jails for prisoners from the major gangs. But, so far, policies aimed at improving prison security have not been maintained. Besides, there is a great deal of corruption within federal and provincial prisons, and that’s where the government will have to take concrete actions. If not, the situation could get worse, considering the prisons are seriously overpopulated.
IC: What alternatives are left for Rosario?
GdlS: The new government of President Javier Milei announced the use of the armed forces to fight drug trafficking in Rosario. This has not happened since the return of democracy in 1983. Other countries have used the armed forces to fight drug trafficking, and it did not work well.
Today, the main problem in Rosario is that the leaders of criminal groups have consolidated in prison. The leaders are very difficult to control with adequate policies in place. It’s not only about security, but also social policies. Rosario has very high levels of poverty, and these groups penetrate poor spaces to recruit young people who end up as hired assassins.
*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Feature image: The front cover of the book, “Rosario: The Story Behind the Narco Mafia That Took Over the City.”