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ZRP

Freeman Razemba Crime Reporter
Zimbabwe Republic Police officers were part of a team that was trained recently by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) on using firearms to trace the identity of poachers and solving related crimes.

The training workshop was held in France last month. According to Interpol, using the police organisation’s firearms investigation capabilities to track and identify criminals behind poaching and related crimes was the focus of training for specialist officers from across Africa.

“The Firearms Programme Policing Capabilities for Investigating Environmental Crime workshop focused on the challenges posed by illegal firearms trafficking in relation to wildlife crime in national parks, reserves and other wildlife sanctuaries.

“With one of the nine participating countries having seized more than 3 000 firearms between 2012 and 2016, including many linked to poaching, the working group addressed the importance of tracing illicit firearms and using ballistic evidence in wildlife crime investigations,” Interpol said.

The participants were trained in using the Interpol Illicit Arms Records and tracing Management System (iARMS), which assists information exchange and cooperation between law enforcement.

This assists to link a suspect to a firearm in a criminal investigation, identify potential firearm traffickers, detect firearm crime trends and support targeted intelligence-led police operations aimed at curbing the firearms supply to terrorist networks and violent individuals.

“The training included practical exercises on firearms tracing as an investigative lead generator using iARMS and promoting evidence sharing using the Interpol Ballistic Information Network (IBIN), which is the only large-scale international ballistic data sharing network in the world,” Interpol said.

Other modules also covered a range of Interpol capabilities including the “Firearms Recovery Protocol, Indicators of Firearms Trafficking and Interviews following Firearms Recovery”.