Strengthening of forensic capacities in the domain of the organized cross border crime prevention in the field of narcotics trafficking

According to the geotransitive position of Serbia and Bulgaria on the way of drugs trafficking, the needs, objectives of the project were determined and the project strategy was defined. During the project preparation and realization, the members of the team are in the continual contact. The project beginning will be announced by two media presentations in Nis and Sofia and the team members would be present with respective high Ministry delegations. The aim of these publicity activities is to emphasize the importance for stability and safety of the whole region.Further, the tender procedures for supplying the equipment will be organized for the needs of the labs. The creation of information structure data base for the narcotics content will be organized through data exchange between two forensic teams from the relevant labs. This activity will be realized through mutual working visits of the experts from Nis and Sofia labs and led by a foreign expert. The next segment the project will be organized through workshops for the criminalistic police officers in order to introduce them to necessity and practical use of the spot tests in ordinary practise. The workshops will be organized as follows: the officers from the area of Bor and Vidin will participate in one workshop to be conducted in Bor, the second workshop with participants from Zajecar and Montana areas will be held in Montana, the third one for the participants from Nis, Pirot and Sofia areas will be held in Nis, the fourth workshop for the paricipants from the area of Jablanica and Pernik will be conducted in Pernik and finaly the fifth one for the participants from the area of Pcinja and Kystendil will be held in Vranje. For these activities the booklits and IT have to be enabled. The closing conference for media will be held in Nis in order to announce the succesfully realized project and to send the message for residents of both countries of the strong attampt to preserve the safety in the region.

The project was focused on prevention of cross-border organized crime in domain of narcotics trafficking. During project implementation six forensic laboratories in Bulgaria (RIFSC, Sofia, Montana, Vidin, Pernik and Kyustendil) and one forensic laboratory in Serbia (Nis) were equipped. New equipment led to regular analyses for the traces of narcotics, including for some new types of drugs. The improvement was essential for profiling procedure introduction in the ordinary work of the forensics labs, thus enabling connecting the ways of drug trafficking – EUROPOL information. In addition, criminalistics police officers in both countries were supplied with and trained to use the spot test for traces of narcotics, strengthening the police capacity for disclosing the smuggled drugs. In order to further strengthen sustainable cooperation between the project partners, a modern database was created for exchanging relevant information between laboratories both on the national and international levels. The project was successfully completed in February 2013.