When the gap between his salary and his family’s basic expenses began widening dramatically, Diego – like many other Argentinians – started working as a rideshare driver on top of his day job. He usually does a few hours at the end of his 12-hour shift; and more on his days off.

It would be just another story from recession-ridden Argentina, but for the fact that Diego is a federal police officer.

The chainsaw austerity measures of president Javier Milei have had a devastating impact on the daily lives of large parts of Argentina’s population. While the rate of overall economic activity is slowly increasing, purchasing power has been rapidly declining as increasing numbers of people take loans to cover the basics, including food.

“You can make around 44,000 pesos (about £24) in an extra eight-hour shift in the police or you can make 42,000 pesos worth of trips in four hours. It’s just maths. It is very common to get in a rideshare and find out the driver also works in the police,” said Diego, who asked not to use his real name.

A growing number of Argentinian police officers, including those who spoke to the Guardian, say they are taking on second jobs – often carrying with them their government-issued guns for protection.

Human rights organisations say this shift has coincided with an increase in deaths caused by off-duty officers using their service weapons while working other jobs.

According to data from the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (Cels), 75% of deaths caused by police officers using their issued firearms in 2025 occurred while the officers were off duty.

About 13% of the total involved officers working as rideshare drivers at the time of the incident. This represents a marked increase from the past, with 16 cases recorded in 2025, up from two in 2020.

In February, a 30-year-old police officer working as a rideshare driver shot two men who attempted to rob him in broad daylight while he was dropping off two passengers in La Matanza, in the greater Buenos Aires area, local media reported.

A few months earlier, in December 2025, a federal police officer also working as a rideshare driver shot and killed a 15-year-old. The officer said the teenager attacked him while a group of other men circled the car, one of them allegedly carrying a gun. The driver said he identified himself as a police officer before pulling out his government-issued gun and shooting at the group. The bullet hit one of the men trying to open the car, who later died in hospital.

In another case last February, an officer with the Buenos Aires police force, also moonlighting as a rideshare driver, died from his injuries after he was shot by a passenger who attempted to rob him with a gun. The assailant also died from a gunshot.

Both Uber and DiDi, the Chinese rideshare company popular in Argentina, ban drivers from carrying firearms. While some police officers spoken to said they took alternative security precautions, such as avoiding areas considered more dangerous, the common practice of security forces is to carry their guns at all times.

Victoria Darraidou, who coordinates a team working on security policies and police violence at the Cels human rights group, said the fact that police officers are allowed to carry their government-issued guns at all times, even when off duty, is highly problematic.

“Police officers kill and die more when they are off duty. This is because they use their guns without planning, with no support, and in disproportionate ways, and this puts other people and themselves at risk,” she said.

Milei expresses fervent support for the country’s security forces, although police complaints over pay and working conditions have increased over recent years.

Many officers say their take-home income (including extra shifts) normally falls below the poverty line for a family of four, which the government has established at around $1,000 a month.

“I have many colleagues who do Uber, DiDi and deliveries after work. Our salaries are just too low, which also forces us to take loans, and we then live from loan to loan. You pay off one loan and have to take our another just to get by, to buy the basics,” said a female police officer from the Buenos Aires province.

Complaints over salaries and working conditions have led to a growing number of members of the security forces resigning.

Tensions over low salaries and working conditions contrast with the Milei administration’s public discourse in support of the security forces. The president and other officials have publicly praised officers who have used force while off duty.

One of the most high-profile cases in recent years was that of Luis Oscar Chocobar, a police officer who in 2021 was convicted of homicide aggravated by excessive use of force for shooting a 17-year-old allegedly involved in a robbery in the Buenos Aires La Boca neighbourhood in 2017.

Chocobar received a two-year suspended sentence and a five-year ban on holding public office, although the conviction was annulled in 2024. Argentina’s then minister of security, Patricia Bullrich, (now a senator with Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza) publicly defended Chocobar and went on to broaden the circumstances in which police officers are allowed to intervene and use force.

This, according to Cels, is one of the factors that has contributed to a 40% increase in the number of deaths at the hands of police officers in the last two years.

María del Carmen Verdú, lawyer and founder of Correpi, a human rights organisation that has documented cases of police violence in Argentina for more than three decades, says part of the solution lies in limiting the instances when police officers can carry their guns.

“If police officers were not allowed to carry their government-issued guns while they are off duty, the number of ‘trigger happy’ deaths would be significantly reduced,” she said.