YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – INTERPOL’s Regional Bureau in Cameroon was officially opened on Thursday, creating a focal point for police co-operation across Central Africa and with each of the organization’s 188 member countries.
The Yaoundé Regional Bureau, INTERPOL’s fourth in Africa and sixth in the world, will provide support to each of the National Central Bureaus (NCBs) in the region across a range of crime areas, including maritime piracy, trafficking in human beings, armed robbery, trafficking in stolen vehicles and drugs.
At the opening ceremony - attended by Peter Agbor Tabi, Minister, Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency and Emmanuel Edou, Delegate General for National Safety of Cameroon and CAPCCO Chairman - INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said that the new offices will enable law enforcement across Central Africa to better share and analyse criminal information.
“This will in turn directly help police officers on the ground in carrying out their duties, by ensuring that the police tools and services they need are more directly accessible to them,” said Secretary General Noble.
“While each region of the world has their own specific crime issues, dealing with them requires the same solutions. The creation of the new Regional Bureau in Yaoundé supported by INTERPOL projects such as OASIS, we can ensure that frontline officers receive the support and training they need, not only to make their region secure, but to also play a role in wider global security,” added the head of INTERPOL.
In addition to training provision, the Regional Bureau will organise specialised meetings and support police operations such as the upcoming Operation Gbanda III involving five countries targeting stolen motor vehicles registered in INTERPOL’s databases.
Another key role of the Regional Bureau is to encourage and support expansion of access to INTERPOL’s global databases beyond the NCBs to strategic locations such as border control points, enabling officers at borders to instantly check if an individual is wanted internationally or travelling on a stolen or lost travel document.