Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has proposed the creation of regional centers in Latin America to combat organized crime, the presidential website reported Wednesday.
During the International Conference on Support for the Central American Security Strategy held in Guatemala, Colombia’s head of state proposed the creation of regional centers to collect information on crime and illegal arms in countries in the region, as well as polygraphy centers, in a joint effort to combat regional organized crime, including money laundering and drug trafficking.
The president said that it is necessary to “create a system of illegal arms [information], and for each weapon that is confiscated, follow it: where it came from, why it arrived, and begin to control much more effectively this arms trafficking that causes the immense majority of deaths,” newspaper El Tiempo reported.
“We have learned that we have to hit all of the fugitives in the chain, without contemplations: from the cultivation of drugs, the processing, the laboratories, the transport, the consumption, the money laundering, the capturing of goods; the whole chain,” said Santos, who also highlighted the importance of “co-responsibility” in the matter.
“If we collaborate in this effort…we are going to be much more effective,” added the Colombian president.