Unprecedented wave of narco-violence stuns Argentina city

ROSARIO, Argentina (AP) — The order to kill came from inside a federal prison near Argentina's capital. Unwitting authorities patched a call from drug traffickers tied to one of the country's most notorious gangs to collaborators on the outside. Hiring a 15-year-old hit man, they sealed the fate of a young father they didn't even know.

At a service station on March 9 in Rosario, the picturesque hometown of soccer star Lionel Messi, 25-year-old employee Bruno Bussanich was whistling to himself and checking the day's earnings just before he was shot three times from less than a foot away, surveillance footage shows. The assailant fled without taking a peso.

It was the fourth gang-related fatal shooting in Rosario in almost as many days. Authorities called it an unprecedented rampage in Argentina, which had never witnessed the extremes of drug cartel violence afflicting some other Latin American countries.

A handwritten letter was found near Bussanich's body, addressed to officials who want to curb the power drug kingpins wield from behind bars. “We don’t want to negotiate anything. We want our rights," it says. "We will kill more innocent people.”

Shaken residents interviewed by The Associated Press across Rosario described a sense of dread taking hold.

“Every time I go to work, I say goodbye to my father as if it were the last time,” said 21-year-old Celeste Núñez, who also works at a gas station.

The string of killings offer an early test to the security agenda of populist President Javier Milei, who has tethered his political success to saving Argentina’s tanking economy and eradicating narco-trafficking violence.

Since taking office Dec. 10, the right-wing leader has promised to prosecute gang members as terrorists and change the law to allow the army into crime-ridden streets for the first time since Argentina's brutal military dictatorship ended in 1983.

His law-and-order message has empowered the hardline governor of Santa Fe province, which includes Rosario, to clamp down on incarcerated criminal gangs that authorities say orchestrated 80% of shootings last year. Under the orders of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro, police have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits.

“We are facing a group of narco-terrorists desperate to maintain power and impunity,” Milei said after Bussanich was killed, announcing the deployment of federal forces in Rosario. “We will lock them up, isolate them, take back the streets.”

Milei won 56% of the vote in Rosario, where residents praise his focus on a problem largely neglected by his predecessors. But some worry the government's combative approach traps them in the line of fire.

Gangs started their deadly retaliations just hours after Pullaro’s security minister shared photos showing Argentine prisoners crammed together on the floor, heads pressed against each other’s bare backs — a scene reminiscent of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s harsh anti-gang crackdown.

“It’s a war between the state and the drug traffickers,” said Ezequiel, a 30-year-old employee at the gas station where Bussanich was killed. Ezequiel, who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said his mother has since begged him to quit. “We’re the ones paying the price.”

Even Milei's supporters have mixed feelings about the crackdown, including Germán Bussanich, the father of the slain gas station worker.

“They're putting on a show and we're facing the consequences," Bussanich told reporters.

A leafy city 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires, Rosario is where revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born, Messi first kicked a soccer ball and the Argentine flag was first raised in 1812. But it most recently won notoriety because its homicide numbers are five times the national average.

Tucked into a bend in the Paraná River, Rosario's port morphed into Argentina's drug trafficking hub as regional crackdowns pushed the narcotics trade south and criminals started squirreling away cocaine in shipping containers spirited down the river to markets abroad. Although Rosario never suffered the car bombs and police assassinations gripping Mexico, Colombia and most recently Ecuador, the splintering of street gangs has fueled bloodshed.

“It’s not close to the violence in Mexico because we still have the deterrence capacity of the government in Argentina,” said Marcelo Bergman, a social scientist at the National University of Tres de Febrero in Argentina. “But we need to keep an eye on Rosario because the major threats come not so much from big cartels but when these groups proliferate and diversify.”

Drug traffickers keep a tight grip over Rosario's poor neighborhoods full of young men vulnerable to recruitment. One of them was Víctor Emanuel, a 17-year-old killed two years ago by rival gangsters in an area where street murals pay tribute to slain criminal leaders. No one was arrested.

“My neighbors know who’s responsible,” his mother, Gerónima Benítez, told the AP, her eyes shiny with tears. “I looked for help everywhere, I knocked on the doors of the judiciary, the government. No one answered.”

A fearful existence is all Benítez has ever known. But now, for the first time in Argentina, warring drug traffickers are banding together and terrorizing parts of the city previously considered safe.

Imprisoned gang leaders in Latin America have long run criminal enterprises remotely with the help of corrupt guards. But according to an indictment unveiled last week, incarcerated gang bosses in Argentina have been passing instructions on how to kill random civilians via family visits and video calls.

Court documents say the bosses paid underage hit men up to $450 to target four of the recent victims in Argentina’s third-largest city. The killing of Bussanich, two taxi drivers and a bus driver in less than a week in March, federal prosecutors say, “shattered the peace of an entire society."

Street emptied. Schools closed. Bus drivers picketed. People were too terrified to leave their homes.

“This violence is on another level,” 20-year-old Rodrigo Dominguez said from an intersection where a dangling banner demanded justice for another bus driver slain there weeks earlier. “You can’t go outside.”

Panic was still palpable in Rosario last week, as police swarmed the streets and normally bustling bars closed early for lack of customers. A diner managed by Messi’s family, a draw for fans, reported quiet nights and less profit. Women in one neighborhood said they carry 22‐caliber pistols. Analía Manso, 37, said she was too scared to send her children to school.

Pope Francis last month said he was praying for his countrymen in Rosario.

Assaults and public threats continue. This month, a sign appeared on a highway overpass warning Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich that gangs would extend their offensive to Buenos Aires if the government doesn't back down.

Authorities have sought to reassure the public by sending hundreds of federal agents into Rosario. The AP spent a night with police last week as officers patrolled neighborhoods logging suspicious activity and setting up checkpoints.

Georgina Wilke, a 45-year-old Rosario officer in the explosives squad, said she welcomes federal intervention, including the military, to get crime under control. “We've been hit very hard,” Wilke said.

Omar Pereira, the provincial secretary of public security, promised the efforts represent a shift from failed tactics of the past.

“There were always pacts, implicit or explicit, between the state and criminals,” Pereira said, describing how authorities long looked the other way. “What’s the idea of this government? There is no pact."

But experts are skeptical a tough-on-crime approach will stop drug traffickers from buying control over Argentina’s police and prisons.

“Unless the government fixes its problems with corruption, the crackdown on prisons is unlikely to have any long-term effect,” said Christopher Newton, an investigator at Colombia-based research organization InSight Crime.

For years, Rosario's 1.3 million residents have watched warily as presidents and their promises come and go while the violence endures.

“It’s like a cancer that grows and grows,” said Benítez from her home, its windows protected by wrought-iron bars.

“We, on the outside, live in prison,” she said. “Those inside have everything.”

A chain lock reinforces the locked door of a gas station that started closing shop at night after the killing of a worker at a nearby station a few weeks before, in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. The order to kill came from inside Ezeiza Prison from gang leaders who hired a 15-year-old hitman to kill gas station worker Bruno Bussanich on March 9. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Prison guards stand inside the Pinero jail complex in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. President Javier Milei has called for harsher penalties against drug traffickers and military intervention. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

An inmate looks out from a window at Pinero jail in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Authorities have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Inmates play soccer at Pinero jail in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Authorities have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

The Pinero jail complex stands in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. President Javier Milei’s tough-on-crime message has empowered hardline governor Maximiliano Pullaro’s efforts to clamp down on incarcerated criminal groups, which he said planned 80% of shootings in Rosario last year. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A police officer stands guard on a street in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. President Javier Milei has promised to prosecute gang members as terrorists and change the law to allow the army into crime-ridden streets for the first time since Argentina's brutal military dictatorship ended in 1983. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Prison guards stand behind the entrance to Pinero jail in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Authorities have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A banner hangs over a bus stop asking for justice regarding the murder of bus driver Cesar Roldan in Rosario, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Geronima Benitez wipes her eyes as she speaks about her son Victor Emanuel, 17, who was murdered by drug traffickers who were never arrested two years ago, during an interview at her home in Rosario, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Benítez said her son’s killer still lives down her street and is not convinced a prison sentence would make a difference. “We, on the outside, live in prison,” she said. “Those inside have everything.” (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Geronima Benitez holds a photograph of her son Victor Emanuel, 17, who was murdered by drug traffickers who were never arrested two years ago, at her home in Rosario, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Benítez said her son’s killer still lives down her street and is not convinced a prison sentence would make a difference. “We, on the outside, live in prison,” she said. “Those inside have everything.” (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Police patrol the streets of Rosario, Argentina, as a family that collects disposed cardboard to resell pushes their children in a shopping cart, late Monday, April 8, 2024. Agents fanned out across hardscrabble areas, spending hours logging neighborhood activity and setting up checkpoints on major thoroughfares. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A mural of Claudio Ariel Cantero covers a wall alongside a supportive message of him written by his family, in Rosario, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Cantero, known as “El Pajaro,” or The Bird, was the leader of the criminal organization called “Los Monos,” or The Monkeys, and was shot to death at a bowling alley on May 26, 2013 in Santa Fe. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A resident who did not want to be identified shows the gun she keeps at her home for self-defense as she poses for a photo in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. The homicide rate is five times the national average in Rosario. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

People hang out at a park in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. The birthplace of Lionel Messi and revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara morphed about a decade ago into the country’s drug trafficking hub, as regional crackdowns pushed the trade south. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Police officer Georgina Wilke drives her patrol car in Rosario, Argentina, late Monday, April 8, 2024. Agents fanned out across hardscrabble areas, spending hours logging neighborhood activity and setting up checkpoints on major thoroughfares. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A child rides a bicycle past a mural of Gabriel Ignacio Romero, a resident who was murdered on the sidewalk outside his home the previous year, in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. For the past decade, the 1.3 million residents of Rosario have watched warily as presidents and their promises come and go. What endures, they say, is violence. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A mural of soccer player Lionel Messi covers a building in Rosario, Argentina, Monday, April 8, 2024. The birthplace of Messi and revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara morphed about a decade ago into the country’s drug trafficking hub, as regional crackdowns pushed the trade south. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A prison guard sits in a watchtower at the Pinero jail in Pinero, Argentina, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. President Javier Milei has called for harsher penalties against drug traffickers and military intervention. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was "certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”

For both men, Friday’s meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.

Netanyahu’s Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.

On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.

Trump’s campaign said he pledged in Friday's meeting to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.

In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how “a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel” can vote for Democrats.

He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu's speech and claimed she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and “doesn’t like Israel." Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.

For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.

One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.

Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed. Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Price reported from New York.

Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Believers' Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks while meeting with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - President Donald Trump, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Sept. 15, 2020, at the White House in Washington. Trump is due to talk face-to-face with Netanyahu for the first time in nearly four years. The meeting Friday, July 26, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago will mend a break that has lasted since 2021. Trump at the time blasted Netanyahu for being one of the first leaders to congratulate President Joe Biden for his election victory. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)