Good practices for investigating irregular migration, trafficking and smuggling
Latin America / AMERIPOL

Good practices for investigating irregular migration, trafficking and smuggling

22 July 2021

The climate crisis, political factors, major economic crises and, in recent months, the socio-economic effects resulting from the pandemic have increased the mobility of people between countries in Latin America, posing significant challenges for governing regional migration. Alongside this phenomenon, migration-related crimes such as human trafficking, sexual exploitation, document forgery and trafficking in arms and illicit substances have also increased.

In this context, the EL PAcCTO project: Support to AMERIPOL has held a series of videoconferences to share and promote good practices and lessons learned between the European Union and the Latin American region.  The objective of this activity was the presentation, by Latin American and European police forces, of good police practices in investigating migration-related crimes and in the creation of cooperation networks within AMERIPOL.

The main results arising from the meetings included the analysis of strategies to combat migration-related crime, as well as the implementation of specific protocols.  In addition, experiences have been shared by regional cooperation programmes such as EUROFRONT.

Members of the EL PAcCTO projects: Support to AMERIPOL and EUROFRONT, which are financed by the European Union and co-managed by FIIAPP, have participated in the videoconferences, in which the delegate of the AMERIPOL Executive Secretary, Milton Fornazari Jr and the representative of the European Commission Directorate General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), Jorge de la Caballería, have also been present along with representatives from the AMERIPOL UNAs, police departments specialising in investigating migration crimes, EUROPOL professionals and members of the Ministries of the Interior, Security and Defence in various Latin American countries.