Middle East joins the fight against drug trafficking

Baghdad hosts the meeting of counter-narcotics chiefs from West Asian countries. In recent years, an increase in drug trafficking routes from South and Central Asia has been detected, which, due to its location, directly involves the Middle East as a central hub, both as a receiver and sender to the European Union.

In addition, the destabilisation of the region has contributed to many criminal groups taking advantage of the absence of strong and coordinated states to combat them, to exploit criminal activities as a source of funding. There has also been an increase in the trafficking of captagon, a drug consumed by young people in the Middle East, from Syria, the proceeds of which finance terrorist activities in the region.

Miguel de Domingo, head of the Security, Peace and Development area of the FIIAPP attended this meeting to present the second phase of the European EU-ACT project that will begin in the coming months and will be managed by the Foundation. The aim of this project is to improve the effectiveness and operational cooperation of specialists in charge of investigating drug trafficking and organised crime associated with this crime.

The idea of the second phase of EU-ACT is to export the working methodology of the EMPACT projects, which consists of operational action planning, enabling police, judges and prosecutors from different countries and regions to work together on the basis of shared threats.

The second phase of EU-ACT will work in complementarity with other projects with successful methodologies that facilitate coordination between actors in the criminal chain.

This presentation demonstrated the need and importance of collaboration between different countries and institutions in the fight against criminal groups involved in drug trafficking and related crimes.