Drug traffickers gaining influence in Argentina amid Milei’s sweeping social cuts

Gang bosses support soup kitchens and offer jobs and loans in drive to expand control of poor neighbourhoods

In a small colourful room tucked away in the south of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, four women are making bread and pizza bases, the bright spring sun shining strong outside the windows, which are covered in black metal mesh.

Inside, the radio blast upbeat tunes, but the mood is grim: the neighbourhood has been shaken by the livestreamed torture and murder of two young women and a girl allegedly at the hands of a drug trafficker who lived just a few blocks away.

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