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General Vilay Lakhamphong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Security of Laos chaired the opening ceremony. The Vietnamese delegation attending the conference was led by Senior Lieutenant General Luong Tam Quang, Politburo member and Minister of Public Security.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Security of Laos Vilay Lakhamphong said that the country is aware and understands that no country wants crimes to occur on its territory, but due to its geographical location and favorable immigration conditions, criminals can escape.

He shared that Laos has built and perfected the mechanism of the Cooperation Conference at the ministerial level and related agencies to suit the actual situation in each period, to built and supplemented additional documents as a basis for cooperation such as the Convention on Action Plan, the work plan on preventing and combating transnational crime in the region and organized conferences to exchange and to review the implementation of cooperation in each year, to find ways to solve the problem of transnational crime at the international, regional and national levels.

On the morning of August 28 in Vientiane (Laos PDR), the opening ceremony of the 18th ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Transnational Crime (AMMTC 18) was held (Photo: VNA).

There are many threats of transnational crimes such as drug trafficking, especially synthetic drugs, which continues to increase, as can be seen from the number of cases busted by the authorities each year, although ASEAN has paid great attention to solving this problem. Human trafficking, cyber fraud, and high-tech crimes are also on the rise... In addition, terrorism, arms smuggling, money laundering are also security threats in the region.

The Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Security suggested that ASEAN countries need to strengthen cooperation, to help each other, exchange information; build capacity for law enforcement forces, share lessons and be ready to find the best way to prevent and suppress transnational crimes.

The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime is a high-level discussion mechanism that plays an important role in promoting cooperation, preventing and combating transnational crime. At the Conference, delegates reviewed and assessed the situation of transnational crime in recent times, from which they made recommendations and proposals for joint implementation in the work of preventing and combating transnational crime in the coming time.

Vietnamese Minister Luong Tam Quang made a number of recommendations and proposals at this year's event. Firstly, he proposed more sharing of information on crimes, support information collection, verification, and investigation of crimes; research and promote joint investigation coordination, combat joint special cases against transnational crimes such as drug crimes, criminal offenses, human trafficking, high-tech crimes; send working groups to coordinate verification, investigation, and arrest of criminals in one country hiding in another; to organize joint patrols, coordinate the implementation of ASEAN-level common peaks to attack and suppress transnational crimes, especially between countries that share the borders.

He also proposed that countries strengthen coordination to grasp the situation and fight against crimes committed by citizens of one country in another; promote and diversify regional communication campaigns to create changes and raise people's awareness of potential threats from transnational crimes, especially human trafficking, terrorism or cybercrime, contributing to proactively preventing transnational crimes early and from afar.

The third proposal, said Quang is to improve the effectiveness of handling requests for judicial assistance in criminal matters and extradition, transfer, and criminal prosecution among ASEAN countries, especially in tracing and recovering assets appropriated and smuggled abroad by criminals, meeting the requirements of fighting and handling crimes on the basis of ensuring compliance with legal regulations and political and foreign affairs requirements of each country.

He also stressed in the last proposal that the members should further promote research and cooperation in applying advanced science and technology (artificial intelligence, big data, virtual assistants) to support each other in training, to improve the capacity of law enforcement officers to serve the prevention and combat of transnational crimes, meet the rapid development of technical means, improve capacity to meet practical requirements, fight against crimes in the new situation with the principle of "not being behind criminals, not letting criminals run rampant."

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