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Activity funded by Canada |
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The Airport Communication project (AIRCOP) organized a training on "Interdiction of trafficking at airports" in Casablanca, Morocco from 25 to 28 September 2018.
The AIRCOP project aims at rooting a culture of intelligence gathering and information sharing in regular working practices of law enforcement agencies present at international airports and at building their capacities to detect (through targeting and profiling) and intercept high-risk passengers, including foreign terrorist fighters, as well as drugs and other illicit goods.
As part of its support to Member States in combating terrorism and transnational organized crime, including drug trafficking, AIRCOP, in cooperation with the Brazilian customs, organized a four day training that brought together 26 police and customs frontline officers from different international airports of the Kingdom of Morocco including Mohamed V in Casablanca, Agadir-Al Massira, Rabat-Salé, Tangier-Ibn Battuta and Fès-Saïs.
During the training, which was funded by Canada, the Brazilian experts shared their expertise on various modus operandi of illicit trafficking, indicators used for the identification of suspicious passengers, means of targeting through electronic databases and airline data as well as examples of seizures made at São Paulo's Guarulhos international airport. An on-site training at Mohamed V airport followed the classroom training during which the participants guided the Brazilian expert through airport security all the way from international arrivals gate to passports check, transit, body scan, medical inspection of suspicious passengers, customs and finally baggage control.
This training is a part of a series of activities organized by AIRCOP in Morocco with a view to enhance frontline capacities to identify threats and increase airports control security, that started in January 2018 with a training on "Profiling and targeting of suspicious passengers" held in cooperation with UK Border Force.
AIRCOP, implemented by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in partnership with INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO), aims at strengthening the capacities of international airports to detect and intercept drugs, other illicit goods and high-risk passengers (including foreign terrorist fighters), in origin, transit and destination countries. AIRCOP also promotes intelligence and information sharing between services at national and international level, as well as an intelligence-led approach to countering drug trafficking as well as other types of threats.
The project, funded by the European Union, Canada, Japan, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Norway and France, was initially designed in 2010 as part of the European Union's Cocaine Route Programme. Since then, it has expanded its scope to cover multiple threats targeting airports, including all illicit drugs, other illicit goods (such as wildlife, counterfeit medicine or weapons) and most recently terrorism and trafficking in persons. The project has also expanded its geographical coverage and its network currently covers over 30 countries, including 24 airports with a JAITF and 5 associate countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
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