The three countries signed a biometric cooperation agreement, exchange information and will conduct joint operations to combat drug trafficking, arms trafficking, trafficking and illicit trafficking in persons, as well as gangs and other transnational crimes affecting these countries.
Security authorities in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras signed a Biometric Cooperation Agreement on Monday to work together to combat transnational crime.
The trinational agreement, signed in the Guatemalan capital, includes the exchange of information and the development of joint operations to combat drug trafficking, arms trafficking, trafficking and illicit trafficking in persons, as well as gangs and other transnational crimes affecting these countries.
Its main objective is to define the terms and conditions that will govern the three countries for the consultation and request of data generated from biometric information analysis. This joint effort will allow the exchange of information and the identification of people with police records, said Guatemalan Minister Francisco Jiménez.
For his part, the Head of Justice and Public Security of El Salvador, Gustavo Villatoro, pointed out that this initiative shows the commitment of the authorities to face the security challenges and stressed the importance of always being a step forward from the crime.
Villatoro pointed out that the hyperconnectivity of criminal organizations demands that each State have these appropriate tools to combat transnational crime.
Crime knows no borders, is flat and operates in any of our countries, Villatoro stressed.
Meanwhile, the Honduran Minister of Security, Héctor Sánchez Velásquez, said that violence and crime in the Central American region must be addressed in a comprehensive manner and pointed out the importance of these agreements that contribute to strengthening the cooperation ties of the three countries.
“We are honored to sign this agreement, which will allow us to unify efforts in a trinational way to be more effective in the fight against transnational organized crime,” Sánchez said.
The event was also attended by the United States ambassador to Guatemala, Tobin Bradley, who stressed the importance of this instrument of cooperation, which allows the identification of criminals crossing borders to evade justice.
Bradley recalled that between August and October 2019, his country’s government signed separate agreements with each of the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America, in order to exchange biometric information from the U.S. database that has more than 260 million registered identities.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo