Ameripol: the future of policing in the Americas
Drug trafficking, cybercrime, migrant smuggling and human trafficking will be priorities for police forces in the Americas. A specialized anti-drug centre will be established in Colombia.
By Juan Carlos Buitrago Arias | April 22, 2022
The April 7–8 summit set the goal of making Ameripol the most powerful, technically advanced, professional and effective police force in the Americas. Photo: Ameripol.
The 13th Summit of the Police Community of Latin America and the Caribbean has concluded in Barranquilla. It may be the most significant event since Ameripol’s creation in 2007. Ameripol currently comprises 35 regional police forces, alongside distinguished observers such as INTERPOL, Europol and Spain’s National Police. In recent years, these have become its most valuable partners in consolidating Ameripol as the world’s third police community with the greatest growth potential.
INTERPOL’s integration into the National Police in 2010, Colombia’s entry into Europol in 2003, and the institution’s membership since 2010 in “Pearls in Policing,” the world’s most exclusive policing think tank, place Colombia’s National Police among the world’s most influential, professional and established police institutions. Pearls in Policing will meet in Bern, Switzerland, in June to examine criminal organizations’ infiltration of countries’ economic, social and governmental structures. These connections help Colombia’s police gain recognition as the most developed force in Latin America and the Caribbean and provide the leadership and trust needed to remain the driving force behind Ameripol, the region’s most important police-cooperation mechanism. Spain’s police, Europol and INTERPOL, led by their directors, have provided crucial support, guidance and coordination.
The recent Barranquilla summit was attended by INTERPOL’s secretary general, a representative of Europol’s executive director, Spain’s police director, the director of Argentina’s National Gendarmerie, who serves as Ameripol’s president, and the director of Brazil’s Federal Police, which holds the Executive Secretariat. Colombia has committed significant financial and other resources to securing the community’s headquarters and maintaining its permanent Technical Secretariat, where liaison officers from Ameripol member forces are based.
The historic April 7–8 summit marks a turning point for Ameripol in its effort to become the most powerful, technically advanced, professional and effective police force in the Americas. Spain’s police director made the point clearly: Spain is a friend of Latin America and also the most direct bridge for strengthening cooperation with the European Union.
Four strategic areas for immediate development will be Ameripol’s priorities. All directly address the region’s greatest public-security challenges, as reaffirmed by interior and security ministers in the agreement signed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in August 2018. The approach is multidimensional, combining information exchange, investigation, training, smart technology and standard police operating procedures.
The action areas will focus on launching the Ameripol Police Information System (SIPA), developed with support from Spain’s El Escorial Police Data Processing Centre; creating Ameripol’s specialized anti-drug centre in Colombia, operating with the Andean Regional Anti-Drug Intelligence School (ERCAIAD) and supported by the OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD); implementing the Ameripol Specialized Cybercrime Centre (AC3), the only centre of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly relevant as cyberattacks against states’ critical infrastructure increase by 24% annually; and establishing the specialized centre to combat migrant smuggling and human trafficking (CTT), a global concern affecting 84 million displaced people worldwide and growing in the region at a rate of 60%.
Drug trafficking, cybercrime, migrant smuggling and human trafficking will be the priorities of police forces in the Americas. Increasingly connected across borders, they promise effective, practical and agile cooperation within Ameripol, with an exceptional advantage: transnational crime will be tackled through direct global connections and integration with INTERPOL and Europol.
Argentina, Brazil and Colombia have been central to Ameripol’s consolidation, alongside the Spain-led “Europol project” and the commitment of the countries that signed the Buenos Aires agreement. The next challenge is the decisive step toward legal establishment, planned for June in Santiago de Compostela, where more than 15 foreign, interior and security ministers from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean will meet. Europol began similarly in 1994 as an anti-drug police unit. Political commitment was decisive in strengthening and developing it into what is now Europe’s most effective police organization against crime.
Ameripol’s great challenge will be to integrate the most powerful information and investigation system in the Americas.
This is Ameripol’s great challenge: integrating the most powerful information and investigation system in the Americas by uniting efforts against crime from Patagonia in Argentina to Mexico and the Caribbean, leaving criminals nowhere to hide from law enforcement—with the exceptions, of course, of Venezuela and Cuba.
This is Colombia’s National Police: an example of leadership and international ambition, recognized in the world’s most exclusive forums and cited as a model elsewhere. It is a police force efficiently connected to the global security community and at the forefront of modern policing.
LPNSN: What happened in El Remanso, Putumayo, stems from Indigenous, farming and local communities living alongside illegal armed groups around the cocaine business. It also reflects the state’s comprehensive absence, which enables critics of public institutions to undermine the security forces’ operational role.
Column originally published at: https://www.las2orillas.co/ameripol-el-futuro-de-las-policias-de-america/
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