Global Courant
Gustavo Coria took over as Minister of Justice and Urban Security at a heated moment. For and after the crime of engineer Mariano Barbieri during a robbery in Palermo. It is his turn to lead the region in the last three months of the Horacio Rodríguez Larreta government, which fired Eugenio Burzaco, the previous minister.
Coria is 54 years old, married and has two daughters (27 and 21). He has a degree in political science and says he has a passion for management. “I like to change,” he says. He’s a River fan, even though he hasn’t been on the field in a while. He also doesn’t sleep much, about four hours on average, because he says that when he’s not at the ministry, he runs around the city streets. Especially at night, including Saturdays and Sundays. He says that’s important. So, without naming him, he is different from Burzaco, who was in the United States at the time of Barbieri’s murder and was seen in the crowd at a US Open tennis match. That cost him his job.
Born in General Levalle, a city in the south of Córdoba, he knows his way around fabrics. He served as Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Justice and Security between 2018 and 2021 during the tenures of Diego Santilli and Marcelo D’Alessandro. At Santilli he gained experience in public management. Between 2016 and 2018, he was President of Ceamse, when “Colo” was Minister of Environment and Public Space of Buenos Aires. He later accompanied him in the election campaign as a pre-candidate for the office of governor of the province for Together for Change. Santilli lost the intern at Néstor Grindetti, the Barbieri crime occurred and Coria was appointed minister. In an interview with Clarín, he answers 6 questions about security:
–Is there more uncertainty in the city than in previous years?
–The city of Buenos Aires has been pursuing a state security policy since 2016. It began with the creation of the Comprehensive System of Public Security Law, the creation of the Institute of Public Security, a system of civil administration, an intelligent use of all its resources, that is, the men and women who make up the armed forces, everything that the Logistics of patrol cars, trucks, motorcycles, investment in critical technology and a police mindset. All of this resulted in the city of Buenos Aires being the second largest capital with the lowest murder rate in America. There is a work that gives its results about what violent crime itself is, according to which the rate of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which was 4.86 in 2018, is now 2.85. It informs you of a successful security policy. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems to fix, that there aren’t adjustments that need to be made permanently.
“Our policy is zero tolerance for crime,” says Minister Coria. Photo Ariel Grinberg
–How important are statistics when someone loses a loved one to a crime or their life savings to a robbery?
Numbers are numbers and they are cold numbers. As long as there is crime in the city of Buenos Aires, we must work as if there were many, regardless of the amount. Our policy is zero tolerance for crime. Zero tolerance for criminals. Criminals in the city of Buenos Aires are the ones who need to be afraid. What has to make a peaceful life possible are the neighbors. As long as there is a crime, we will work on the streets all day long so that this criminal can get justice and the citizen can live in peace.
– Is the number of police officers there today enough to cover the entire city? And how many are there currently in general and on the street?
–Today the city has a police force with a staff of 26,000 men and women. There are about 19,000 people on the streets. The rest are investigative areas, cybercrime and others. The use of resources is intelligent. They are distributed according to four effectors: population of a district, demographic mobility, area and crime map. Added to this are the many investments that have been made in technology. Today the city has two very powerful instruments. Firstly, a video surveillance system consisting of 13,200 dedicated cameras with 3,000 kilometers of dedicated fiber optic for this security system and has about 1,800 integrated cameras. With these 15,000 cameras we can monitor 75% of the streets via video. In addition, the video surveillance system has an artificial intelligence system to make the use of these cameras more efficient. The second most powerful tool is the digital ring, which allows us to control all income and expenses of the city of Buenos Aires. With this tool we have been able to reduce car thefts by 90% over the last 15 years.
– At that time, the facial recognition system was announced and it was reported that more than a thousand fugitives from justice had been arrested. Nothing more was said after that. What happened to these cameras?
– The facial recognition system is an exceptional tool introduced during the administration of Diego Santilli, Minister of Justice and Security in 2018, which made it possible to make 2,100 fugitives wanted by the judiciary available to justice, many of them because of them serious crimes, homicides, robberies and sexual abuse. This is an artificial intelligence system that worked with 300 licenses alternating on 15,000 cameras. At that time there were 46,000 people with arrest warrants or insurgents. It is impossible for a police officer walking through the city to remember 46,000 faces. This intelligent tool allowed you to determine the identity of the person seeking justice, match it with the Nation’s Justice Department database and Renaper, and there was immediately a device with which to arrest him. In 2022 there was an interim injunction with a precautionary measure. Today the facial recognition system doesn’t work. We are now working with the Ombudsman’s Office to have it repealed and reused as a security tool.
– And as for the role of the judiciary: in the case of the murder of the engineer Mariano Barbieri in Palermo, the defendant was convicted and convicted of various crimes and was free. What needs to change so that these people who should be incarcerated don’t commit crimes on the streets?
–We need to review the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Last week in Constitución we carried out an operation in a shop with stolen cell phones. At the same time we were closing the store and confiscating 91 stolen cell phones and 60 car parts, a thief down the block stole a cell phone and we managed to stop him. It was Wednesday. This attacker was released on Monday. Two days later he committed a crime. We clearly have a problem with the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Criminal Code that needs to be reviewed. And yes, work with the justice system must not stop for one day, it must stop every day.
Juvenile criminal law also needs to be discussed. We note with concern that in the specific case of the city, men between the ages of 13 and 17 make up 3% of the population. However, men between the ages of 13 and 17 are responsible for 10% of robberies and thefts in the city. We need to review not only the juvenile justice system, but also the system for caring for these minors, because if we don’t review it, these minors will either kill or die.
Coria took over as minister on September 5, replacing Burzaco. Photo Ariel Grinberg
– On Sunday, motorcycle jets attacked a diplomat in Palermo and a thief died. In Recoleta they broke the windows of a woman returning from a change house. Why is it so difficult to solve the motorcycle jet problem?
– As long as there is only one case, we will work as if there were thousands. A motorcycle robbery occurs when other criminal regimes have no access. They account for about 8% of all robberies in the city. It’s easy for them to move, it’s easy for them to get around, and it’s easy for them to escape. That’s why we have reinforced the places where the crime map shows the greatest threat, based on people’s mobility, with more motorized police presence. In places where the danger is greater, there will be significantly more motorized police presence. It’s preventative. And when it happens, you have to react quickly, as was particularly the case with the robbery of the Turkish embassy officials’ vehicle.
