Belgrade — With a ceremonial signing of the Letter of Intent in Belgrade, South East Europe moved closer today (8 September) towards intensified co-operation and training in the field of fight against organised crime.  Today’s ceremony marks the operational start of the Organised Crime Training Network (OCTN), which has been established in line with the conclusions of the 2002 London Conference on Defeating Organised Crime in SEE.  OCTN will train specialised organised crime investigators in SEE in fighting all forms of organised crime, provide a framework for an exchange of best practices and methodologies and will give opportunity to enhance common investigation activities.

Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom on one side and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and UNMIK/Kosovo* on the other have agreed to co-operate and network their activities to fight organised crime with the aim to further develop organised crime investigation units in SEE.

Hosting the ceremony in Belgrade, Serbian Minister of Interior Dragan Jocic said: “Organised crime is a real enemy of each society worldwide and also in this region.  The OCTN project is a base for closer co-operation in fighting organised crime which shall enhance security of each participating country and society.”

OCTN, which will be managed by an experienced Slovene manager and police trainer Peter Jeglic, has been set up under the umbrella of the Stability Pact.  Attending the Belgrade ceremony, Pieter Verbeek, Director of Working Table III, and Iver Frigaard, Co-chair of Stability Pact Police Forum Initiative, stated that training of specialised police investigators in methodologies and best practices to fight organized crime would undoubtedly become a major project in the SEE region.

Organised crime incorporates trafficking in human beings, drugs and other illegal goods, fraud and money laundering, underground banking, smuggling and corruption, and also modern forms of organised crime like the Internet crime and credit card fraud.

For further information, please contact Stability Pact's Spokesperson Dragan Barbutovski
at the SP Secretariat in Brussels (Tel: +32 2 401 87 25 or press@stabilitypact.org).

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PR2005/016

*UNMIK/Kosovo has an observer status