At that meeting they approved a joint declaration to promote a permanent communication channel to fight organized crime, more joint operations that involve financial investigations or give more support to the institutionalization process of Ameripol, the Police Community of America.
Velásquez highlighted that he invited the EU to “articulate ourselves in such a way that we all have the capacity to confront a crime that is very powerful, very violent, with many resources.”
Something that in his opinion can only be achieved with “strength on the part of the States”, that “share information, that generate spaces of trust for this exchange of information.”
“If they want to generate them, we are fully willing and we have even asked them for that,” added the minister, who during his stay in Belgium also visited the port of Antwerp (north), one of the main gateways for drugs into Europe. , especially cocaine.
Velásquez explained first-hand to his European interlocutors Colombia’s plan against drug trafficking, focused on “suffocating” the drug traffickers and giving a balloon of “oxygen” to the farmers who grow coca.
After forcibly eradicating more than three million hectares of coca in twenty years without the expected results, the Colombian Government has opted to give land for other crops to farmers who want to benefit from this plan.
As he explained, to follow the trail of drug traffickers’ money it is necessary to “build trust” with international partners, since they have “no borders or nationality.”
“Those spaces that we share for joint work against drug trafficking are the spaces that we have to take advantage of to generate trust, so that they know here that we are acting with all responsibility and with all the will and decision to affect the phenomenon,” he emphasized.
Velásquez saw it as essential that there be “more agility” when it comes to sharing crucial information to detect drug traffickers and seize their assets, both in Latin America and Europe.
He defended direct contacts between police officers, less “cumbersome” than diplomatic or judicial channels, as long as respect for all rights and freedoms is guaranteed.
“Without violating rights, without affecting guarantees, because it is not about that either, we must be respectful, absolutely, of all the fundamental guarantees of all citizen rights,” he stressed.