The Argentine government has a new Criminal Intelligence Analysis Center to support operations against narcotrafficking organizations and groups linked to terrorism. The center, in Puerto Iguazú, in the Tri-Border area shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, was inaugurated on January 15, La Nación reported.
“This initiative, beyond combating organized crime, is a collaboration to establish a monitoring unit in the Tri-Border area,” Fabián Calle, a political analyst and professor of International Relations at Argentina’s Austral University, told Diálogo on February 12. “For years, terrorist groups have been detected there that have connections with the Lebanese group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, which is trying to strengthen its presence in Latin America.”
The objective of the Center is to implement strategies against illegal trade, money laundering, organized crime, corruption, and of course the presence of possible terrorist cells, Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told the press.
Emblematic area
According to Argentine news site Infobae, the center’s location was chosen for being an emblematic area where the three nations converge
The area is known to have porous border crossings, where organized crime with strong links to terrorism often operate to smuggle illicit goods, La Nación reported.
For Calle, it is essential to strengthen and, in some cases, re-establish cooperation ties with the intelligence services of the United States, Israel, Germany, and the rest of the world, due to the threat from Hezbollah and other Iran-backed terror groups operating in Latin America.
“At present, federal forces based in the region from Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay are jointly monitoring criminal actions and possible cells related to terrorism,” the Argentine Ministry of Security said.
The new center will have permanent technical and specialized support to optimize efficiency and effectiveness in the prevention and fight against crimes. In addition, the center will perform strategic studies to anticipate new crime scenarios that will help institutional decision-making.
Hemispheric support
In early February, Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers of Argentina Nicolás Posse met with U.S. Army Major General Scott Jackson, chief of Staff of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), in Florida, strengthening ties of friendship and both countries’ common national security objectives.
According to Infobae, the Argentine Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) and the CIA have evidence of Hezbollah’s activities in the Triple-Border, and both organizations, with SOUTHCOM’s support, are set to operate to stop terrorist groups’ operations in Latin America.
Argentina designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in July 2019 and focuses its attention on the organization’s money laundering operations in the Triple Frontier, known as a hub of criminal activity.
On March 17, 1992, Hezbollah bombed the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, killing 22 people. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, also in Buenos Aires, a car bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people, marking Hezbollah’s first attacks in Latin America.
On December 10, 2023, as Javier Milei assumed the presidency of Argentina, he vowed to strengthen key cooperation alliances with the United States and Israel.
“We must be very attentive with a pro-Western liberal government, with positive and close relations with the United States or Israel as is the case of Milei,” Calle said. “The sectors linked to the Castro-Chavist-Iranian circuits will not rule out trying to punish Argentina for having ‘dared’ to elect a liberal president with Western policies.”
Days before the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Argentine Foreign Ministry received sensitive information from its Embassy in Iran, warning that the Bolivian representation in Tehran was issuing visas to Iranian citizens “with minimal conditions,” Argentine newspaper Clarín reported on October 30.
“A hot zone is opening up that has to do with Iran and its allies in Bolivia, where the border with Argentina is porous,” Calle said. “This situation is worrying the U.S., Israeli, and Argentine intelligence, as there is evidence of delivery of documents to Iranian citizens circulating with Bolivian documentation.”
Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America has been documented since the 1990s. The organization, which controls southern Lebanon with the support of Iran, expanded throughout the world, sheltered by the Lebanese communities resulting from the exodus caused by the civil war between 1975 and 1990.
The list of illicit trades in the region includes drug, arms, and human trafficking; smuggling; wildlife smuggling; counterfeit tobacco and alcohol products; and gold trafficking, among others.
The problem of terrorism is on the agenda of Argentine government officials and alerts persist. “The important thing is for security measures to work together to avoid terrorist activities in the region, after the attack suffered by Israel by the Hamas group,” Calle concluded.