This content was published on April 5, 2022 – 10:22 pm April 5, 2022 – 10:22 pm
Panama City, 5 April (EFE) .- The heads of Colombian and Panamanian prosecutors met in the Central American country on Tuesday to assess cooperation against organized and cross-border crime, migrant smuggling, human trafficking and financial crime.
Panama Attorney General Javier Caraballo and Colombia Attorney General Francisco Barbosa evaluated strategies to combat migrant smuggling, rapid investigation progress and bilateral cooperation, according to an official statement.
“We are aware that in both Panama and Colombia we have the same regional problems in terms of crime, our countries face criminal groups together and only with help and mutual relationship we can reduce the incidence,” Caraballo said.
Referring to “the statistics of working together,” Barbosa reiterated that both justice institutions wanted to “send a message” to the public that they were “one entity in terms of law enforcement.”
In a statement, the Colombian prosecutor highlighted the development of a “strategy to identify” migrant smuggling, real-time investigation progress, and cooperation between countries and institutions, according to the Panamanian Ministry of State (MP, Public Prosecutor’s Office).
This strategy allows for a “strengthening” which, according to official information in Panama, has “positive effects in the prosecution of the crime of migrant smuggling”.
For example, last year Panama’s Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime opened 61 investigations into migrant smuggling with 24 convictions, and so far in 2022 there have been 24 investigations into this crime.
The Darién, the natural border between Panama and Colombia, has been used for years by people from all over the world traveling to the United States, but in 2021 more than 130,000 migrants crossed it, a historic number recorded amid a migration crisis regionally .
It is considered one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world, not only because of the climatic conditions of the jungle itself, but also because of the presence of armed groups and drug traffickers in the area.
Every year migrants die trying to traverse the dense jungle and many of them fall into the hands of these criminal groups
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