President Alberto Fernández announced on Tuesday at noon that he will send 1400 police officers to Rosario to combat growing violence linked to organized crime in the port city. 

“We’re not scared of fighting organized crime,” said Fernández, announcing the measures. “We will end the criminal violence carried out by hitmen, merchants of death.”

An office of the Financial Information Unit will be installed in the city to fight drug-related money laundering, and 600 security cameras with facial recognition technology will be installed.

The military will be deployed to poor, informal barrios to develop housing and infrastructure. “Our armed forces will act with honesty, agility and conviction, just like they did during the pandemic and against the wildfires,” the President said. 

Fernández said the prison system would also double down on controls of inmates who control crime on the streets from behind bars. 

The measures come after a week of violence in the city: on Sunday four children were shot, one fatally, and last Thursday bullets were fired at a supermarket belonging to football superstar Messi’s in-laws.

Former security minister, president of right-wing PRO party and presidential hopeful, Patricia Bullrich, on Sunday accused the president of failing to stop prisoners from communicating from inside jails. 

“President Fernández: by a law of our government, communications in prisons are forbidden. They break the law, and you do nothing,” she wrote, asking whether he had “given up, like your security minister?”.

“Organized crimes does not develop overnight,” said Fernández. “It takes time to occupy territories, to recruit criminals, to co-opt the Security Forces, the judiciary and politicians, which is what grants them with impunity.” 

“The events and images from these past few days portray what they’re capable of,” he continued. Fernández said he had spoken with Santa Fe governor Omar Perotti and Rosario mayor Pablo Javkin, and made some decisions to dismantle organized crime in the city.