AS PART of the security preparations for Cricket World Cup 2007, the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Secretariat for the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE), in collaboration with the Ministry of National Security, recently organised and staged border security seminars in the island.

The OAS has conducted more than 50 courses over the past two years in preparation for the ICC Cricket World Cup. The seminars dealt specifically with border security, terrorism, hostage negotiations, venue security, hospitality and events security.

Several assessments of security at airports, seaports, hotels and venues were carried out by teams comprising local, regional and international security and law enforcement organisations.

Hot topics

Terrorism, money laundering, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, arms and ammunition smuggling and detection of fraudulent documents were among the topics addressed at the seminars.

Attention was also placed on ways to identify fraudulent documents, detecting suspicious passengers who may appear to be carrying out illicit activities and also ways to increase entry/exit control mechanisms at various ports of entry.

About 25 persons from organisations in Kingston and Montego Bay participated in the seminars.