The Commissioner of Police, Eddie Yome, and Chief Inspector Edgar Lopez recently attended the 85th Interpol General Assembly held in Indonesia.

Under tight security from several hundred officers, the host nation provided a secure environment for 830 delegates from 164 countries, including countries’ national police chiefs, to meet for four days under the theme of “Identifying and meeting member countries’ security needs in the face of an ever- changing threat landscape.”

Panel discussions were followed by the presentation of Interpol’s strategies for each of the following key areas:

• - The threat posed by returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters and the importance of information sharing (e.g. biometric data), to assist countries in identifying and interdicting these potential threats
• - The detection, investigation, prevention and prosecution of organised crime groups operating across a range of illicit markets
• - Addressing the increasing sophistication and diversification of the modus operandi of cyber-criminals

The Interpol General Assembly also endorsed the expansion of Interpol’s “i-Checkit” programme, (which checks against Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database to combat terrorism and transnational crime), to the maritime industry.

Interpol also signed several agreements with other security partner organisations to enhance and encourage information exchange. The final day saw delegates elect China’s Vice Minister of Public Security, Meng Hongwei, as the new President of Interpol, taking over with immediate effect from Mireille Ballestrazzi of France.

Commissioner Yome highlighted how Gibraltar’s attendance and contribution to Interpol meetings was extremely important for the RGP, stating that “the current threat from transnational crime, international terrorism and cybercrime dominating law enforcement agendas worldwide, means that vital policing information from any of INTERPOL’s 190 member countries must be securely and swiftly exchanged in order to combat threats effectively”.

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