INTERPOL training in combating counterfeiting reaches police across the globe
2010.09.13 , INTERPOL

More than 70 law enforcement professionals from 20 countries have undergone training delivered by INTERPOL as part of the world police body’s efforts to boost national and regional capacity in combating product counterfeiting and piracy.

Organized by INTERPOL’s Intellectual Property (IP) rights programme, two training seminars were held simultaneously in Colombia from 6-9 September and in South Korea from 5-10 September, the first of its kind to be held in the Asia and Pacific region.

With speakers from regional and international organizations, including the World Customs Organization, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Inter-American IP Association, the private sector and specialists in IP investigations, the four-day seminar in Bogota, supported by the Policia Nacional de Colombia, provided added impetus for INTERPOL’s ongoing Operation Jupiter targeting transnational organized criminals behind counterfeiting networks in South America.

This was the third such course held in 2010 in the Americas, and brought together officials from police, customs, prosecutors and IP bodies from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Panama, Peru and Venezuela ahead of operational deployments across the region.

The Sixth IP Crime Training Seminar, held in Seoul in partnership with Korea Copyright Commission, saw senior level officials representing police and customs agencies from 13 member countries - Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - updated on successful investigation techniques as well as tacking wider consumer health and safety dangers arising from counterfeit goods.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui told the students that the knowledge and skills they had developed during the seminar would provide a firm foundation for law enforcement co-operation in INTERPOL facilitated and coordinated interventions in transnational counterfeiting designed to identify and arrest the organized criminals responsible for this illegal activity.

The IPR programme will host three further courses in the Asia-Pacific region in 2011 in support of a series of planned operational deployments.