TERRORISM and transnational crimes have unified various customs agencies throughout the Pacific.
In the 4th Annual Conference of Customs Heads of the Oceania Customs Organization, 33 delegates pledged their support to implement the necessary customs measures against terrorist groups.
“Customs is the first line of defense against terrorism for any country. The CNMI strongly unites with other areas to fight terrorism,” said Lt. Freddie Guajardo of the CNMI Customs Services Division.
Guajardo was one of the delegates and speakers to the conference, where he discussed the CNMI’s Border Management and Pacific Region Detector Dog Training Center.
In a four-page conference communiqué, a copy of which was obtained by Variety yesterday, the group highlighted the regional problems on drug trafficking, regional drug storage and transit issues.
Money laundering, tobacco smuggling, electronic crime and people smuggling are also major problems faced by Pacific countries, according to the communiqué.
The CNMI, Guam, Australia, Fiji, the Marshalls, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, Tonga, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna, the Federated States of Micronesia, Niue and Palau are some of the Oceania Customs Organization members.
The conference, which was hosted by the French Pacific territory of Wallis and Futuna, also supported the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 concerning the broad range of measures needed to suppress the activities of terrorist groups and their support networks.
CNMI Customs Director Joe Mafnas, in a separate interview, said the commonwealth is now a member of the Customs Asia-Pacific Enforcement Reporting System, or Capers. This system allows selected customs officials to secretly alert other jurisdictions of suspicious cargoes or passengers using an on-line computer system. In the CNMI, only two Customs officers have access to Capers.
