PORTUGAL’S POLÍCIA Judiciária (PJ) is to head up an international project to combat drugs trafficking. Representatives from police forces from more than six European countries will work out of a Lisbon based office from July this year.
The project will see the setting up of the Analysis and Operations Centre against Maritime Narcotics Trafficking. Its objective is to co-ordinate, manage and share information about drugs trafficking, as well as and organise joint operations in the countries involved.
Police from Portugal, Spain, England, France, Ireland, Italy and Holland are involved, and the US and EU are also partners. Representatives met on March 20 and 21 at the European Drugs Observatory in Lisbon, when the PJ was chosen to lead the project. For security reasons, the address of the HQ was not revealed.
The official opening of the centre will co-incide with the start of Portugal’s presidency of the EU, which gets underway in the second quarter of this year.
Last year, in Portugal, a total of 34,476 kilos of cocaine were seized by the authorities, along with 8,587 kilos of cannabis and 144 kilos of heroin.
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