Boarding and searching demonstration for Drug Enforcement Officials

The Indian Ocean Region's Senior Drug Enforcement Officials' Meeting which was jointly organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Ministry of Defence got underway at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo on 13^th October 2015. High ranking delegates representing 21 countries and 07 organizations were in attendance with a view to enhance regional cooperation among drug enforcement agencies involved in countering drug trafficking in the Indian Ocean.

During the session at the Taj Samudra hotel, attention was drawn towards standardizing data collection on drug seizures at sea and ports, the nexus between purity, drug-stamps and manufactures, developing sub-regional cooperation, regional drug trafficking patterns and capacity building needs of drug enforcement agencies in the Indian Ocean Region. The final day program of the three-day meeting was conducted at the Western Naval Command Headquarters in Port of Colombo, under the patronage of Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne on 15^th October 2015 where Captain Michael Turner made a briefing on boarding and searching techniques.

Marking the end of the program, a Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) team comprised of SBS personnel of the Sri Lanka Navy and the Coast Guard conducted a demonstration of a mid-sea boarding and vessel searching techniques. During the demonstration, the professional competencies required for boarding a vessel at sea by using the advantage of surprise was highlighted. In addition detecting narcotics in concealed locations which needs lot of expertise knowledge and practical training was displayed to delegates. The difficulty of detecting narcotics onboard a vessel and how smugglers exploit such environments for their advantages was amply comprehended by the delegation and, they thanked the group who conducted the well executed demonstration on behalf of them.