NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY (NCA), CANBERRA VIRTUAL MEETING WITH ASEANAPOL SECRETARIAT ON CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING (CBT) PROGRAMS 2023

Date: 09 December 2022 (Friday)
Time: 11.00 AM

1.   ASEANAPOL Secretariat (AS) attendee:

i. Pol. Brig. Gen. Zaw Lin Tun, Executive Director (ED)
ii. Senior Superintendent Police Joni Getamala, Director of Police Service (DPS);
iii. Superintendent Jacky Tang, Director of Plans & Programmes (DPP);
iv. DSP Suresh Subramaniam, Plan & Programmes Officer I; and
v. ASP Engku Nurul ‘Aini Engku Malek, Plan & Programmes Officer II

2.  National Crime Agency attendee:

i.   Mr. David Coyle (Regional Manager – Asia and the Pacific, National Crime Agency, British High Commission, Canberra, Australia).

3.  Discussion:

The ASEANAPOL Secretariat had received the response from the National Crime Agency, Canberra, pertaining to AS request on the CBT program for 2023. It was suggested that as a Dialogue Partner, NCA is expected to co ntribute at least one CBT annually for the benefit of all AMCs and vice versa.

Accordingly, NCA Canberra has proposed a topic on ‘Fraudulent Travel Documents’ which is suggested to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, co-host with ASEANAPOL Secretariat and to be fully sponsored by the NCA.

During the meeting, Pol. Brig. Gen. Zaw Lin Tun, the Executive Director expressed his desire to work closely with the NCA in the implementation of training courses, particularly those involving the 10 core areas of Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) which are the priority for ASEANAPOL in keeping this region safe.

In view of the complexity of crime nature in Maritime with involving different law enforcement agencies, the Executive Director also highlighted that such TOC training seems particularly beneficial to AMCs. In further discussion, ED hopes that the NCA can consider bringing in officers with expertise in that field and share their expertise with all the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) such as the Maritime Police, Customs and Cost Guard.  

As a compliment, both DPS and DPP expressed their gratitude and appreciation to the NCA for their invitation in extending to all AMCs and AS directors to attend the Conference on Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) in person as part of their contribution on the Capacity Building Training program for the year 2022 in Manila, Philippines. The knowledge gained from those experts truly gives a better understanding of CSAE, especially online pornography, and putting a stop list of potential criminals to warn AMCs. Both directors agreed this training should be continued for the following years until such crime subsides. In addition, DPS gave his opinion on the program organized by the NCA on CSAE, where all the participants interacted w ell with experts in their experiences and shared their ideas and best practices.

Mr. David Coyle agreed with the idea mentioned by DPS, where he stated that NCA would use the same training system to conduct the ‘Fraudulent Travel Document’ and hopes that NCA would be able to provide the expertise on that particular topic.

Mr. David Coyle informed that he would table the proposed training to NCA Headquarters. He also hopes that all the proposed ideas are achievable in order to deliver all the requirements of the AMCs. Tentatively NCA intends to organize two different courses, namely ‘’Fraudulent Travel Document’ and ‘Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation’, in April and December 2023 respectively.

Besides that, as for the ‘Maritime Fraud’, NCA intends to organize it in the year 2024 and as a suggestion to that NCA, DPP suggested to cover this topic with Maritime Laws and Enforcement capability in an investigation.  

Furthermore, DPP reminded that the Cambodian National Police will be organizing the 11th ASEANAPOL Training Cooperation Meeting (ATCM) which is scheduled in January or February 2023 in Cambodia and the NCA can use the platform to share their tentative programs on CBT.    

During the meeting, both parties discussed on the possibility of implementation from the said proposal, and NCA will further pursue the necessaries before reverting any details pertaining to the proposed CBT to ASEANAPOL Secretariat.