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OAS welcomes the launch of a new cooperation instrument against organized crime in the Caribbean

The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) applauds today’s official launch of the Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network in the Caribbean (ARIN-CARIB), a new and promising regional tool in the fight against organized crime, created and developed with the support of the OAS.

The Network – the seventh of its kind in the world since 2004 – was launched at a two-day meeting in Miami (USA) attended by criminal justice officials representing 32 jurisdictions and constituent countries in the Caribbean region. The objective of ARIN-CARIB is to connect law enforcement agents and prosecutors of the Caribbean to work together in the forfeiture of assets derived from crime and hidden in the region. As an important change, the new Network assembled officials from the four legal traditions that are found in the Caribbean region: those of the English, Dutch, French, and Spanish-speaking islands and jurisdictions.

The Secretary for Multidimensional Security of the OAS, Claudia Paz y Paz, celebrated the initiative as “a fundamental tool for the coordinated international fight against organized crime. Criminal organizations take advantage of the lack of cross-border coordination, and projects like ARIN-CARIB are essential to eliminate these gaps.” “At the OAS we are very pleased to have contributed to the creation of this Network, to which we commit our continued supporting. We will support all similar initiatives because we are mandated by our member states to assist and foster international efforts to combat crime in our region,” she added.

The General Secretariat of the OAS provided the technical and financial cooperation for the establishment of the Network, in compliance with a recommendation of the Group of Experts for the Control of Money Laundering (GELAVEX) of the OAS. The Department against Transnational Organized Crime (DTOC) of the OAS also provided technical guidance to the discussions that lead to the creation of the Network, and in the future will continue participating in Network activities as an ‘observer,’ giving technical advice and procuring additional resources for its consolidation.

The purpose of ARIN-CARIB, like other already-existing networks in Latin America (Asset Recover Network of GAFILAT, RRAG), Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region, is to promote informal contacts between investigators of cases that involve the potential forfeiture of assets beyond their borders. The objective is that these interactions, when they take place in advance of formal petitions based on international treaties and conventions, will facilitate and accelerate the ensuing formal processes.

Reference: E-050/17