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News
Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 11, 1995
DEA
to Host the Franco-American-Canadian-Italian Conference in Washington,
D.C., September 12-14, 1995
High-level law enforcement
officials from Canada, France, Italy and the United States will meet to
discuss strategies designed to combat worldwide drug trafficking and global
organized crime, September 12-14 at the Hay-Adams Hotel in downtown Washington.
DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine, host of the Franco-American-Canadian-Italian
Conference welcomes the opportunity to exchange ideas and coordinate efforts,
"This conference is an outgrowth of the international law enforcement
cooperation which led to the breakup of the `French Connection' in the
early 1970's. It's in that spirit that we gather to face the successor
generation of drug traffickers, better organized, richer, more sophisticated,
technologically adept and determined to profit at the expense of worldwide
social and political well being. We'll be discussing cooperation and developing
strategies to insure that there is no safe haven for international criminals
anywhere in the world."
"Great inroads
against drug trafficking have been made through Canadian, French, Italian
and American cooperation since the days when we were concentrating on
reducing the flow of opiates from Turkey through France to the U.S. including
the recent arrests of 6 of the 7 top Cali Mafia kingpins in Colombia.
Even greater inroads can be made if we implement better controls on the
chemicals used to produce drugs and if we share successful strategies
that can be adapted locally around the world. We must continue to seize
the traffickers' assets and use those assets against the criminal organizations
themselves. Most importantly, our cooperative law enforcement efforts
will help forge a world where traffickers are severely and consistently
punished and our citizens are no longer drawn into the drug trade."
Administrator Constantine added.
The conference will
include briefings from each delegation on the drug situation in their
countries, reports on the worldwide cocaine and heroin situations, sessions
on Nigerian trafficking groups and Russian organized crime, reports on
the precursor situation and money laundering, and a look at new automated
booking stations and computer forensics.
In addition, as part
of the exchange of information and ideas the foreign attendees have requested
a presentation on DEA's recently initiated Mobile Enforcement Team (MET)
program. The METs are mobile and strategically located teams of Special
Agents that can be deployed to communities across the country which are
faced with escalating drug violence. The specially trained teams work
with local authorities to dismantle violent drug gangs and remove them
from the community. "We've been really pleased with METs successes.
Since the METs concept became operational in April, we've deployed 19
active teams and made a real difference in the communities we've assisted.
The METs concept is effective and can easily be adapted to other countries.
I'm looking forward to these discussions and to hearing about initiatives
that we might be able to adopt here," Constantine stated.
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