Interpol and South African police host fingerprint experts

The Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (SARPCCO) hosted a 3-day meeting last week in Windhoek, attended by experts from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The meeting was a first in the region, and was endorsed by Interpol.

As reported by New Nambia’s newspaper New Era, delegates learned about the advances of fingerprint technology in fighting “transnational crimes” around the world, and about how the utilization these advances enable SARPCCO member countries to efficiently exchange information regarding cross-border crime syndicates.

Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga of the Namibian Police spoke of the importance of fingerprinting during criminal investigations.

“This requires our SARPCCO member countries to have qualified fingerprint experts who will be able to use this tool [finger printing] without difficulties to identify offenders,” he said.

Namibian Police fingerprint expert, Inspector Cathleen Araes, said, “This workshop will help us to deal with cross-border criminals and how to enter data into the Interpol database and (figure) out a system where police work with the home affairs offices to get fingerprints via a one-way system that allows us to access the database.”

Participants for the meeting were chosen based on expertise within their respective countries.

Will the utilization of sharing fingerprint information across the countries be helpful in solving and preventing crimes?

Article Topics

criminal ID  |  fingerprint  |  fingerprinting  |  identification  |  Interpol