Taiwan has helped train more than 500 law enforcement personnel from West and Southeast Asian nations over the past decade, using programs established by the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau (MJIB), according to a senior bureau official.
Among those who distinguished themselves during the bureau’s training programs is Thai Department of Special Investigation Deputy Director-General Songsak Raksaksakul, said Chen Neng-ching (陳能鏡), a senior specialist with the bureau’s International Operations Division.
The training programs were inspired by former US FBI director Louis Freeh, who wrote in his memoirs that in the era of crime without borders, organizing international training camps was one of the FBI’s most successful projects.
The ministry’s bureau started in 2007 to hold training camps for law-enforcement personnel from countries in West and Southeast Asia at the request of those nations’ authorities and 45 classes have been opened, with a total enrollment of 523 people, Chen said.
The courses in each class focus on subjects including drug evidence identification, computer crime control and prevention, money laundering control and prevention, and forensic science.
Seminars for middle and high-ranking law-enforcement officers from other nations on cross-border crime have also been organized, while the training program has also attracted officials from Australia and New Zealand, Chen said.
This kind of international cooperation can help deepen and continue friendships between Taiwan and the other nations, he said.
The Investigation Bureau is considering a request from the Philippines to resume Mandarin classes for its investigators, police and customs officials, Chen said, adding that the first course was offered in 2011, but the program was suspended in 2014.
However, a request for the resumption of the program came after Philippine authorities realized that they were seeing more drug-related crimes in recent years involving Chinese-speaking suspects, he said.
“The Philippines asked for the MJIB’s assistance to reopen the classes after it found an increase in Taiwan-Philippine cross-border drug crimes,” Chen said.
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