Home Affairs Minister chairs meeting on firearm trafficking in Caricom

Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn, the current Chairman of the Council for National Security and Law Enforcement (CONSLE) of Caricom, led a meeting recently between Caricom Member States and representatives of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The meeting was held virtually.
The meeting was attended by Ministers and senior representatives with responsibility for national security of Caricom Member States. The Executive Director of the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS), Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jones, was also in attendance.
Firearms trafficking in the Caricom Region was reviewed and approaches to urgently deal with the issue and its related manifestations were identified.
They include implementing the Regional Roadmap for Addressing Caribbean Priority Actions on the Illicit Proliferation of Firearms and Ammunition across the Caribbean by 2030; collaboration with regional stakeholders such as IMPACS to facilitate training and capacity building for Member States and collaboration with international stakeholders such as the ATF and HSI who deal with transnational organised crime.
Optimising the use of the Regional Integrated Ballistic Information Network (RIBIN) and E-Trace; the operationalisation of the Caricom Gun Crime Intelligence Centre (CGIC) was given high priority, as well as opportunities for training, intelligence gathering, and sharing with the ATF and HSI were discussed along with the deployment of intelligence officials to and within the Caricom Region.