Strengthening partnership between Uzbekistan's State Customs Committee, UNODC and the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency on container control

On 15-16 November 2017 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office for Central Asia in partnership with the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (UK NCA) organized a scoping visit of the UK Border Force's experts to Uzbekistan as a part of the UNODC - World Customs Organization Global Container Control Programme (CCP).

The British experts aimed to exchange experience and assess the needs of the State Customs Committee of Uzbekistan in specialized training on profiling of high risk consignments and search techniques of trucks/vehicles. During the meeting at the Headquarters of the State Customs Committee of Uzbekistan, British counterparts shared their best practices with Uzbek colleagues including members of Port Control Units in the areas of profiling, selection and inspection of high-risk consignments used by the UK Joint Border Intelligence Units (JBIU) and Border Investigation Units.

In addition, during the mission, British and UNODC experts had an opportunity to visit the "Yallama" customs border post at Uzbek-Kazakh border and familiarize themselves with its operation and procedures. As a follow up to the mission and in order to further strengthen tripartite cooperation, it is expected that a special training program in UK will be developed by UNODC and British experts and offered to the members of the PCUs of Uzbekistan.

The CCP Regional Segment for Central Asia and Azerbaijan is funded by the Government of Japan and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program.