Bucharest, 6th of October 2016 – On 4th of October 2016, SELEC organized the 6th meeting of the Environment and Nature Related Crimes, at its headquarters in Bucharest/Romania. The meeting, aiming to discuss the regional approaches in preventing and combating environment and nature related crimes and to enhance the cooperation at regional level, gathered experts from SELEC Member States and Partners, such as Belgium, Europol, France, Spain and Ukraine.
Mr. Romulus Nicolae Ungureanu, SELEC Director for Operations and Mr. Endre Hosszu, Task Force Manager, briefed the participants about the activities carried out in the framework of the Environment and Nature Related Crimes Task Force and made an overview of the future expectations.
“When the environment and nature are harmed, the humanity is affected and we are all depending on our planet’s resources. The crimes against environment and nature are frequently linked to organized criminality. Therefore the need to address this issue is obvious and should be materialized in assertive and constant actions” stated the Director for Operations of SELEC, Mr. Ungureanu.Mr. Hosszu, Task Force Manager, mentioned that common efforts always give better results than single actions and that Member States may seek SELEC support for conducting joint investigations.
The meeting offered the platform for networking, the representatives of Police and Customs of SELEC Member States presenting successful cases, sharing experiences, good practices, as well as challenges encountered in investigations carried out in order to prevent and counter this type of crime.
Since its establishment in 2009, SELEC holds annually the meetings of the Environment and Nature Related Crimes Task Force, in coordination with Hungary, as Manager of this Task Force.
