Int’l meeting on people smuggling closes in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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The meeting was co-hosted by the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), marking good cooperation between the two countries in combating transnational crime.

Law enforcement officials from Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia also participated in the event.

At the event. (Photo: Congan.com.vn)

Delegates agreed that irregular migration drives and negative effects of ongoing global migration flows pose one of the largest challenges in modern times.

AFP Commander of the Operation Sovereign Borders Disruption Deterrence Task Group, Lesa Gale, said “The JMG provided a significant opportunity to discuss the various transnational crimes that support people smuggling including document theft and fraud, extortion, human trafficking, child exploitation, and the use of widespread criminal networks to undertake these crimes.”

A panel discussion—involving representatives from the AFP, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the International Organisation on Migration (IOM)—explored the increased links between people smuggling and organised crime; and the challenges posed by people smuggling network facilitators and the flexible adaptation of transit routes to avoid detection.

Vice Minister of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, Senior Lieutenant General Pham Dung announced the primary outcomes of the fourth JMG, on behalf of the regional law enforcement partners who all agreed to:

• Increase criminal intelligence and information sharing among source, transit, and destination countries.
• An ongoing commitment to stop people smuggling at its source, with a focus on disruption.
• A continued investment in capacity building for officers in source and transit countries to pursue the disruption and investigation of criminal syndicates.

The JMG reinforced people smuggling as organised crime that exploits the most vulnerable of people. The meeting is a prime example of law enforcement collaboration, fostering regional cooperation to progress the holistic disruption of people smuggling across the globe.

"Participants highly appreciated the efforts of the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of Public Security for co-hosting the significant regional conference”.

The fifth Joint Management Group on People Smuggling will be held in early 2017 in Australia.