Despite Argentina’s prominent role as a money laundering hub and a key transit and consumption point for drugs, the country does not suffer from the high levels of violence that affect other nations in the region. Nonetheless, the country’s porous borders have enabled the rise of criminal economies, such as smuggling, human trafficking, and arms trafficking. Deep-seated corruption across multiple branches of the state has also consistently fueled criminal dynamics in South America’s second-largest country.
Argentina does not have homegrown criminal groups with international reach, but transnational criminal organizations have long carried out a range of illicit activities in the country. There are also signs that local criminal groups have developed ties with transnational actors and are becoming increasingly sophisticated and capable of using violence.
Geography
Located at the southern tip of Latin America, Argentina shares borders with key drug-producing countries such as Bolivia and Paraguay, as well as Brazil, a major player in organized crime.
Argentina’s borders are poorly monitored, making the country a major hub in the Southern Cone for the trafficking of goods, people, weapons, and drugs — especially marijuana.
Marijuana is primarily trafficked across the border with Paraguay, transported over the Paraná River, and then overland to major consumer cities or ports for river and maritime export. Cocaine is trafficked from Bolivia by air and land routes.
Argentina’s more than 5,100 kilometers of riverine and maritime coastline — including the River Plate and the Atlantic Ocean — are home to numerous major ports, such as Buenos Aires, through which significant volumes of illicit goods and drugs flow in and out of international markets. The same is true for the San Lorenzo port complex, a key point on the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway, a 3,400-kilometer corridor that handles 80% of Argentina’s grain exports. The port sits in the Greater Rosario area, the epicenter of Argentina’s drug-related violence.
History
For much of the 20th century, Argentina paid little attention to organized crime. A series of coups, military dictatorships, and recurrent episodes of political violence dominated the country’s security agenda.
The 1976 coup ushered in Argentina’s last military dictatorship, which lasted until 1983, when the country transitioned to democracy. The military regime focused security resources on repressing political opposition, allowing organized crime to quietly take root in various forms.
Argentina’s domestic drug market began expanding in the 1970s. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, urban police forces were colluding with organized crime, creating “liberated zones” — areas where law enforcement allowed criminal groups to operate in exchange for a cut of their illicit profits. This practice continues today, especially amid the growth of retail drug trafficking networks.
In 1989, Argentina criminalized drug consumption and sales, bringing drug trafficking into the national spotlight. In 1997, Buenos Aires provincial authorities seized 2.2 tons of cocaine that Colombia’s Cali Cartel was preparing to send via Argentina to Hamburg, Germany. Two years later, in 1999, Argentines were shocked to learn that the wife and children of the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar had secretly resided in the country, allegedly laundering some of his criminal earnings. That same year, the government conducted its first official drug use survey, revealing notably high rates of cocaine and marijuana consumption.
Drug trafficking concerns continued to grow in the early 2000s. As cocaine production in Colombia rose to meet US demand, cocaine from Peru and Bolivia increasingly flowed toward Europe. With strong trade ties to Europe and a strategic location, Argentina became a key transit and exit point for Andean drugs headed across the Atlantic.
Authorities also began discovering facilities for processing coca paste within Argentina. The influx of semi-refined coca, coupled with economic turmoil, contributed to a rise in the consumption of “paco” — a highly addictive and harmful cocaine derivative.
Argentina’s robust chemical industry — built to support the country’s petroleum and pharmaceutical sectors — also made it attractive for drug production. Readily available gasoline and precursor chemicals facilitated the emergence of synthetic drug labs. However, as domestic demand outpaced local supply, European traffickers stepped in to fill the gap.
In the early 2000s, criminal networks exploited Argentina’s chemical industry to access black-market precursors — particularly ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which were imported from Asia under the pretext of pharmaceutical needs and used to make methamphetamine in Mexico. Between 2004 and 2008, Argentina imported some 48 tons of ephedrine, of which an estimated 41 tons were diverted to illegal drug production. Although precursor trafficking has declined substantially since 2008 due to stricter regulations and lower demand, Argentina remains one of the world’s main sources of precursors.
Argentina also emerged as a regional money laundering center. A 2009 US State Department cable described the country as “ripe for exploitation” by criminal interests due to what it called an “almost complete lack of law enforcement,” combined with a culture of impunity and corruption. In 2010, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) strongly criticized Argentina’s anti-money laundering strategy and placed the country on its “gray list” to prompt reforms. Argentina was removed from the list in 2014 following improvements, though money laundering remains a key concern for officials.
The country also became a hub for human trafficking. Despite legislative progress, the problem persists. The same conditions that facilitated human trafficking also made Argentina an attractive refuge for foreign criminals. In the 2010s, authorities uncovered operations involving Mexican, Colombian, and other criminal groups.
Domestic criminal groups became more sophisticated and violent. One of the most emblematic of this new generation of Argentine organized crime is the Monos, a gang that gained prominence by trafficking drugs in Rosario, one of the country’s main cities. In 2012, an internal feud among the gang’s founding family members triggered a years-long bloodbath, turning Rosario into a symbol of Argentina’s drug-fueled violence.
Under mounting public pressure, authorities avoided militarized responses banned by law but sent mixed messages about how they planned to confront rising violence, which was largely driven by turf wars among local drug gangs. These groups began diversifying into other activities such as kidnapping and extortion. Corruption, meanwhile, continued to plague various parts of the executive branch, judiciary, and security forces.
Inconsistent data collection during the presidencies of Néstor Kirchner from 2003 to 2007 and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from 2007 to 2015 hindered efforts to accurately assess local criminal dynamics, though perceptions of violence, insecurity, and drug addiction linked to organized crime remained high.
President Mauricio Macri, who served from 2015 to 2019, pushed for tougher anti-crime policies — some of which were criticized for their militarized tone. His administration placed greater emphasis on intelligence gathering and data-driven security policy and took initial steps to treat drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal one.
However, results were mixed. Both domestic and transnational groups continued adapting and running increasingly sophisticated and profitable criminal schemes.
Macri’s successor, Alberto Fernández, governed from 2019 to 2023. Fernández attempted structural reforms to the judiciary and security institutions, including the federal police. Yet entrenched corruption remained a major challenge. Local criminal groups cultivated strong ties with high-ranking officials, and inefficiencies and graft in the judiciary contributed to widespread impunity.
President Javier Milei, inaugurated in late 2023, launched a series of initiatives, including a so-called Anti-Mafia Law, which increased penalties for members of criminal groups involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, organ trafficking, and illegal possession of weapons and explosives. The law also expanded police powers to detain suspects. Another measure, the Recidivism Law, imposed stricter rules on detention and repeat offenders.
Although Argentina passed the FATF evaluation in 2024, it still faces risks stemming from activities such as drug trafficking, tax evasion, corruption, smuggling, fraud, and human trafficking.
Criminal Groups
While there was once little evidence of nationally or internationally active Argentine criminal groups, some local organizations have evolved into more complex and sophisticated structures.
Two of the country’s most powerful national groups are the Monos and the Alvarado Clan, both based in Rosario. As the city’s drug market expanded rapidly after 2010, these clans consolidated power in a context of increasing criminal fragmentation. This created two levels of conflict: a macro-level rivalry between the Monos and Alvarado clans, and micro-level turf wars among smaller gangs.
Another prominent group is the Castedo Clan from the northern province of Salta. Its leader, Delfín Castedo, was captured in Bolivia and extradited to Argentina, where he was imprisoned on cocaine trafficking charges in 2022. The clan reportedly enjoyed support from local politicians and judges, which enabled them to move cocaine from Bolivia to Salta and then to Argentina’s major ports. Also notable is the Loza Clan, whose leaders were accused of coordinating cocaine shipments to Europe.
Other actors include violent soccer fan groups known as barras bravas and certain powerful labor unions that have developed criminal portfolios. So-called “Chinese mafia” groups have also emerged in Asian immigrant communities in Argentina and appear to maintain links to larger structures in China.Transnational criminal organizations from elsewhere in South America have also attempted to expand into Argentina, and local groups are emulating their structures. Brazil’s most powerful gang, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC), has been seeking to grow its presence in Argentina for several years, as has its main rival, the Red Command (Comando Vermelho – CV). However, these gangs have struggled to gain a foothold in Argentina due to the country’s tighter prison controls and its success in avoiding the levels of extreme violence used by these gangs to assert dominance elsewhere.
Security Forces
Argentina’s police play a prominent role in combating crime. In 2021, the country had over 614 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Latin American Geopolitical Strategy Center (Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica – CELAG).
The National Security Ministry oversees federal forces deployed nationwide, including the airport security police, the coast guard, the federal police, and the gendarmerie. In 2025, the ministry expanded its role in preventing and combating federal crimes such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other forms of complex organized crime.Argentina’s provinces and municipalities have their own police forces, many of which are deeply corrupt. The Buenos Aires provincial police, known as the “bonaerense,” has been accused of abuse of power and collusion with criminals. Border police have repeatedly been accused of working with traffickers and other criminal actors. Judicial investigations in Rosario have also uncovered extensive ties between local police officers and criminal groups.
Judicial System
Like its security forces, Argentina’s judiciary is divided between federal and provincial bodies. The Supreme Court is the country’s highest judicial authority, followed by appellate and territorial courts. Each province has its own high court and various lower courts. Political interference in judicial proceedings is common, especially in cases involving elite interests.
Endemic corruption also undermines judicial independence. In 2024, Transparency International gave Argentina a score of 37 out of 100, ranking it 99 out of 180 countries. This long-standing problem worsened in 2025 when the president appointed two Supreme Court justices by decree, bypassing constitutional procedures. The move triggered international concern as a dangerous precedent for checks and balances and democratic accountability.
Prisons
Argentina has 338 correctional facilities (73 under the Buenos Aires Provincial Prison Service, 30 under the Federal Prison Service, and 235 distributed across other provinces). As of late 2023, there were 111,967 people held in prisons, according to the National Penal Execution Statistics System (Sistema Nacional de Estadísticas sobre Ejecución de la Pena – SNEEP). Including the 13,074 held in police or security force custody, the incarcerated population totaled 125,041 — a rate of 268 per 100,000 inhabitants. Of these, just 60.2% had received a final sentence by the end of 2023.
Like many Latin American systems, Argentina’s prison system operates over capacity, with 20.5% overcrowding recorded in 2023. The worsening situation prompted a federal prison emergency declaration in 2019, which remains in effect. In recent years, the problem has grown more visible, especially with a spike in detentions in Buenos Aires, leading the federal prison service to stop accepting new detainees from the capital due to health concerns.
This has caused a dramatic rise in the number of people held in inhumane conditions in police precincts — from 139 in April 2020 to 2,100 by December 2024 — along with increased escapes and the expansion of illegal prison markets.
