Argentina

A CENTURY AGO, Argentina was one of the richest countries on earth. Now, after decades of mismanagement, corruption, and repeated financial meltdowns, the over-indebted country finds itself gripped with rising levels of poverty (50 percent of Argentines lived under the poverty line in 2003), unemployment, and crime.

In the case of Argentina, one cannot talk about organized crime as a phenomenon existing on the margins of society because of the active involvement of political, law-enforcement, and military officials in criminal activities. Thus, aspects of white-collar and corporate crime and intertwined with other criminal categories. In 2001, for instance, former President Carlos Saúl Menem spent six months under house arrest for his alleged involvement in illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia, which was under a United Nations arms embargo. Until the Argentine Supreme Court unexpectedly dismissed charges against Menem, his economy ministers and others, it was alleged that the president had received large payments, deposited in a Montevideo (Uruguay) bank account, for his assistance.

Menem has also been dogged by accusations that members of the security services were actively involved in the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, which claimed the lives of 85 people. It is also alleged that the president and other high-ranking officials were handsomely paid for their complicity in the attack.

In January 1997, on the orders of Alfredo Yabrán, a politically connected underworld king-pin, prominent photo-journalist José Luis Cabezas was shot to death in Buenos Aires. The journalist had been investigating the Jewish community center bombing, and the activities of Yabrán who was found guilty of masterminding the murder in Febuary 2000. The murder of Cabezas marked the beginning of a troubling trend in newly democratic Argentina: the attempt to muzzle or coerce investigative journalists reporting on official corruption and organized crime by using lawsuits, assassinations, attempted killings, beatings, and other forms of criminal intimidation, harassment, and blackmail.

In spite of the economic crisis, Argentina remains an important market and trans-shipment point for international, illegal-drug smugglers, but there is as yet little drug production in the country. Since the crash of the Argentine peso and cashcrunch, individual Argentines barter their possessions (jewelry, for instance) for drugs, while the gangs exchange stolen luxury vehicles and arms for theirs.

Many have also turned to cheaper drugs such as crack and bazuko (poorly refined cocaine paste usually mixed with a number of chemical products and smoked with tobacco or marijuana), while dealers (mindful of shrinking profit margins) have been diluting and adulterating their products with a number of dangerous chemicals. Argentina also remains an important trans-shipment point for cocaine and heroin, produced in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, destined for the United States, Europe (going primarily through Spain), and Australia (often via New Zealand).

Another area of concern is the Triple Border area which has been characterized as a haven for smugglers, traffickers, scoundrels, and terrorists. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the area has come under increased scrutiny from Argentine and international intelligence agencies because of its links to international terrorism. The Triple Border (total population of some 600,000) is made up of three cities: Foz de Iguaçu (Brazil); Puerto Iguazu (Argentina) and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay). The latter is a hub for arms, drugs, and people smuggling, as well as product piracy (cigarettes, electronics, and consumer goods), currency and document counterfeiting, stolen vehicles, and money-laundering.

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