Capacity Building Training for customs and postal security officers to effectively Counter NPS and Opioids Trafficking in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
November 8-9, 2022 Kinshasa, DRC - The International Narcotic Control Board's (INCB) Global Rapid Interdiction of Dangerous Substances (GRIDS) Programme conducted a training for officers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to counter the trafficking of New Psychotropic Substances (NPS), synthetic opioids and other dangerous substances. The training was focused on approaches and tools to enhance international information exchange and intelligence-led targeting, as well as detection and safe handling of dangerous synthetic opioids in the field.
The 2-day training brought together 20 frontline officers from the DRC's customs and postal service. Mr. Amari Bedi Oliver, GRIDS Regional Technical Officer (RTO) for West and Central Africa, delivered a training on the use of Project ION Incident Communication System (IONICS) and the GRIDS Intelligence HD targeting tools for information-sharing, intelligence-analysis and investigation. The training highlighted how to generate actionable intelligence and promote the collaboration among relevant authorities to address NPS trafficking in the Central Africa region. The participants also received awareness raising and safe handling training on the threat of NPS and non-medical synthetic opioids.
The DRC is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa bordered to the northwest by the Republic of the Congo, to the north by the Central African Republic, to the northeast by South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, as well as Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), to the south and southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cabinda exclave of Angola. By area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. Its geographical and geopolitical location, therefore, makes it susceptible to various types of trafficking including that of dangerous substances such as NPS. The Board emphasized the importance of capacity building training of law enforcements agencies for the counter-trafficking of NPS.
The Board's Global Rapid Interdiction of Dangerous Substances (GRIDS) Programme and Project ION and OPIOIDS Project support Governments' capacity to respond to changing trafficking, illicit manufacture, marketing and sales of NPS, non-medical synthetic opioids and fentanyl-related substances by providing real-time communication, facilitating information exchange and intelligence development that interdict distribution of dangerous substances.
The GRIDS Programme is supported by the Governments of Canada, Japan and the United States. This event was made possible through technical support of UNODC Nigeria and generous support from the Government of the United States.
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Click here to learn more about the OPIOIDS Project
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