Argentina’s wilder side unleashed

The police came at a frantic space in vans, cars and motorbikes, all with sirens blaring and blue lights flashing.

Even in Buenos Aires, the scale of this operation was serious. They cordoned off roads, adrenaline was pumping and eight big men in riot gear jumped out of a van and took up position shoulder-to-shoulder, batons in one hand and six-foot plastic shields in the other.

They were outside the hotel I had stayed in a few nights earlier.