Santo Domingo – Dominican Republic. UNODC, through its Global Firearms Programme (GFP), in close cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and Police of the Dominican Republic, organized a training on investigation and prosecution of firearms trafficking in Dominican Republic from 13 to 16 of June 2023 to improve the capacities of criminal justice practitioners to investigate and prosecute firearms trafficking and related crimes. The course sought to make participants aware of the new trends in illicit arms trafficking and provide them with tools and methods to improve their investigative and analytical capacities, and enhancing the cooperation and information exchange between the relevant agencies to effectively investigate and prosecute firearms trafficking and related crimes. The training offered a series of lectures by international and national expert speakers, case studies on methods of detection, investigation and prosecution of firearms trafficking; plenary discussions and exchange of experiences; and practical exercises.
The activity was attended by 26 criminal justice practitioners (4 women) from Attorney General’s Office, Judiciary, Ministry of the Interior and Police, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Central Directorate of Investigations, National Directorate of Drug Control, and General Directorate of Customs. Among participants there were also Mr Anibal Amparo Garcia Diaz, Vice Minister of Control and Regularization of Arms and Ammunition; Mr Sterling Pérez Maldonado, Director of Registration and Control of Carrying and Possession of Weapons; Mr Daniel Mateo Roa, director of the Arms and Ammunition Marketing Control; and Mr Salvador Potentini, Director of Execution of Disarmament.
The sessions were very interactive, and participants contributed to the discussions sharing experiences among themselves, which enriched the course. Feedback from the participants was very positive, particularly appreciating the practical character of the content for their functions, as well as the debates between lecturers and participants.
Strengthening the national capacities to investigate and prosecute firearms trafficking cases is a crucial element of the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap and Dominican Republic’s National Comprehensive Citizen Security Strategy. Dominican Republic has demonstrated its commitment to reduce illicit arms in circulation by continuously seizing and taking them out of circulation and there is a need to strengthen the focus on the trafficking networks that supply them by conducting effective investigations around each seized weapon, to identify all the individuals linked to its trafficking and bring those responsible to justice.
The activity was organised thanks to the generous support of Germany, in the framework of the Global Firearms Programme’s project “Support to the implementation of the crime prevention and criminal justice component of the Caribbean Roadmap to counter illicit firearms trafficking and misuse across the Caribbean in a sustainable manner by 2030”.