Working with international agencies to bring back criminals: CBI director

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is working closely with international law enforcement agencies to geo locate criminals and fugitives and ensure their return to India, CBI Director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal said on Tuesday.

"CBI as a premier investigative agency has substantial experience in investigating complex crimes with international linkages and is making efforts to secure foreign located evidence. We are working very closely with international law enforcement agencies to geo locate criminals, fugitives and for their return to India, he said.

The CBI Director made the comments during his address at the 8th Interpol Liaison Officers Conference.

Jaiswal said that the CBI has been coordinating with international law enforcement agencies to target cyber-enabled financial crimes and also take substantial action to combat the menace of online child sexual exploitation.

"A series of global networks of child sexual exploitation have been dismantled successfully in the recent past. The Interpol channels have been used to share information for parallel action across the globe in different countries," he said.

"We are currently heavily engaged in coordinating action on maritime crime, environmental crime, human trafficking and action on transnational organised crime, he said.

Stating that there is global disbursal of crime, criminals, suspects, conspirators, abettors, witnesses and victims, Jaiswal underlined that law enforcement agencies globally cannot work in silos or work in isolation, especially when criminal elements are escalating cooperation through the use of technological platform like darknet, crypto currency and encrypted communications.

"Digital evidence is getting primacy for successful investigation and prosecution of criminal offences. The challenges posed by online radicalisation, international terror network and organised crime, transnational crimes, cyber enabled financial crimes, etc. require very coordinated and parallel actions to take down such networks, he added.

The Interpol Liaison Officers Conference brings together officers from state and UT police forces, central agencies and central authorities for mutual legal assistance and extradition to discuss the issue of international police cooperation and work towards a common goal of making the existing system more effective.

Delivering the inaugural address at the conference, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla said rapid technological transformations in the last two decades have increased the complexity of police investigations and enhanced the need for international assistance in criminal matters.

"Having an effective international cooperation mechanism, both through formal channels such as MLAT and LR and informal channels like INTERPOL has become very important in the present scenario, he said.

Interpol Liaison Officers play a key coordinating role in execution of Letters of Request and Mutual Legal Assistance Requests from other countries which are forwarded to them for execution, he added.

The Union Home Secretary further said the government has given in-principle approval for the CBI Academy to join the Interpol Global Academy Network, making it a regional hub for providing various specialised training courses of INTERPOL.