In the fight against organised crime, a collaboration was marked between the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security and UK authorities in the field of police analytical intelligence. Analytical software was provided to the Malta Police Force together with professional training delivered by British experts to police analysts in open source intelligence, link charting and building of databases.
In a ceremony held this morning at the Police General Headquarters, Minister for Home Affairs and National Security Carmelo Abela, British High Commissioner Rob Luke and Acting Commissioner Laurence Cutajar presented certificates of achievement. Twelve police analysts from seven different specialised branches, including Economic Crime, Vice/Drug, CID, Terrorism ad Immigration, were awarded after successfully completing four weeks of intensive traning.
In his address Minister Abela showed his gratitude for the support provided by UK authorities. He remarked that the Government’s goal is to mitigate crime through the building of an intelligence-led police force.
In this regard, he highlighted the benefits provided by this new analytical tool which will help analysis to turn large disparate data sets into comprehensive intelligence, in near real-time. Likewise, with its visual analysis capabilities, it will aid analysts to uncover hidden connections, patterns and trends. Tools that will further assist police to alleviate its intelligent practices in the prediction, prevention and disruption of criminal activities.
He noted that this new tool will for the first time allow different branches in the practice of policing to share data between them. “With a technology-based criminal activity that has none of the characteristics of traditional crime, sharing of insight and open communication between different departments is the key that will put the police in an advantageous position over criminals”, said Minister Abela.
The Ministry for Home Affairs reiterated the Government’s committment to build a force that meets the present challenges which would be equipped to be ahead of developing criminal trends.
In this regard, he recalled that in a high level document prepared by the Ministry aimed at identifying the strategic approaches for a long-term police strategy, one of the core higlighted elements was the need for criminal investigations through evidence-based and intelligent approaches.
The Minister concluded by saying that following the training and system-testing phases, in the coming weeks the required procuring of the system’s hardware apparatus will be pursued, with the aim being of having the system fully up and running in the near future.
British High Commissioner Rob Luke noted that this collaboration with the Maltese authorities forms part of the UK’s drive to combat organised immigration crime and other forms of serious transnational criminality. He welcomed the close partnership with Malta in building capability to combat people smuggling, human trafficking and money laundering. He congratulated the participants for their efforts and wished them success in deploying their new skills to tackle dangerous criminality and improve lives.