The effective control of small arms, light weapons and their ancillaries (SALW) is an endeavour that goes beyond national borders. International cooperation and information exchange on SALW allows jurisdictions to coordinate to combat SALW trafficking and misuse, supporting a National SALW Control Strategy (NSCS) by building the collective intelligence picture on SALW threats, improving legal control of SALW at the international and regional levels, and helping law enforcement trace SALW used in the commission of crime.

Arquebus is delighted to welcome Adriana Toston Diez, Major in the Guardia Civil and EMPACT Driver, to discuss the importance of international cooperation and information exchange in combatting SALW trafficking and misuse as part of a NSCS.

§

Please introduce yourself to our readers and provide a brief overview of the work done by EMPACT FIREARMS.

My name is Adriana Toston Diez. I’m a Major in the Spanish Guardia Civil, and I’ve been involved with EMPACT since it was founded in 2014. For that time, I have been involved in the fight against firearms trafficking to tackle serious organised crime.

EMPACT stands for the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats, and every four years in the EU, we identify which threats are the key priorities that we need to cooperate on. Firearms have long been identified as one of these key priorities, having been renewed in each four-year EU security policy cycle, which has now been renamed as EMPACT, and we’re quite sure that firearms will remain a key priority for us going forward.

What do we mean when we talk about international cooperation and information exchange in the context of SALW?

International cooperation is about different states, agencies and other relevant stakeholders, such as the private sector, working together and contributing to specific goals, with each partner contributing complementary perspectives that help tackle the threats we’re all facing.

Regarding SALW, this involves identifying both what the needs are at an operational level and the strategic level. This starts by working together to understand the nature of SALW threats and the modus operandi of traffickers, the relevant legislative frameworks, the capabilities of authorities, and the challenges that jurisdictions are facing nationally. Once we have this overview, then we can move to act at the regional or international level.

International cooperation can begin basic and then develop to become more coordinated and structured. That is what we do at EMPACT: come up with plans targeting specific threats, define concrete actions and establish indicators to measure success. To be able to evaluate our efforts is important, as it helps build trust among all the different partners – a key element to international cooperation.

To achieve this, information must be shared using the proper technology and framework. That starts with exchanging accurate information between agencies through secure communication channels and having structures in place to facilitate this. For example, EMPACT often coordinates with agencies like FRONTEX, using a joint database to share information to support our activities.

What types of data and information regarding SALW might jurisdictions exchange?

Regarding the types of information exchanged, firearms can be linked to people, means of transportation and certain dealers or manufacturers. And we cannot forget about the means of payment, both regular transactions and cryptocurrencies or other digital platforms. All these types of information can be exchanged between jurisdictions and collectively build a better intelligence picture of firearms trafficking, informing investigations into criminal organisations.

Once we have this information, we need to know how to exchange it. The main tool for EUMS is SIENA, a secure information exchange platform. It’s also important that we look beyond just Europe and exchange information with our global partners using systems such as INTERPOL’s i24/7 and connecting them with our own systems.

Ballistic data is also important. We’re working hard to find a common language to exchange ballistic information internationally, which is difficult as interoperability between the different ballistic identification systems is not guaranteed. Some international tracing information exchange tools such as INTERPOL’s iARMS or the ATF’s eTrace, help in this regard, but it is important that we fully recognise the value of ballistic data.

Why is international cooperation on SALW considered necessary?

International cooperation is key for tackling all serious organised crime, but particularly for the control of SALW. Firstly, what objects do we define as a ‘firearm’? It’s also worth noting that when we discuss illegal firearms, most often, we are talking about previously legal goods that have been diverted into the criminal market during their lifespan. Firearms are traded globally, meaning there are plenty of opportunities for diversion across multiple jurisdictions. The need for international cooperation on firearms is tied to the DNA of the threat itself.

And, of course, firearms have a long life, unlike other illicit goods like drugs. They can live twenty, thirty years or more and will be fully operational. That makes the threat even more challenging, with firearms often used by different criminal organisations, exchanging hands over an extended period. This necessitates international cooperation, particularly when tracing firearms.

We need to ensure that legal owners can utilise firearms in a legally controlled manner for activities such as sports shooting and hunting, as well as for protection by law enforcement and militaries. This means jurisdictions need to collectively ensure robust legislative controls are in place, governing aspects like the manufacture, storage, use and possession of firearms and closing legal loopholes that can be exploited by criminals.

What specific SALW threats demand international cooperation?

‘Fake firearms’ come to mind here; lethal weapons that pretend to be something they’re not to avoid legal control. Often, the manufacturing process does not comply with the minimum technical standards we’ve agreed upon globally, such as the inclusion of a serial number, complicating tracing and control.

And then you have privately made firearms (PMFs), nowadays often made using additive technology or 3D printing. The internet has meant that blueprints for 3D weapons can be accessed more widely, giving opportunities for individuals to manufacture firearms at home and circumvent legal controls.

Another significant threat is the surplus of conflict weapons, with criminal organisations taking advantage of unstable situations to acquire firearms and ammunition. Preventing this is key, with sufficient planning and the right control measures in place, we can work together to ensure that weapons used by civilians protecting their territory don’t fall into the hands of criminals and help build a safer environment for the population.

So, we are facing a lot of challenges globally. Rest assured, though, we are doing our best to try to address all the different areas we’ve mentioned by identifying threats, exchanging information, and working together with different stakeholders to enhance our capabilities.

How can information exchange help improve the intelligence picture?

Many years ago, when we started to cooperate, some countries were saying that they were having problems with converted weapons. We listened and began to learn more about the threat thanks to information exchange. Now we know that converted weapons are one of the biggest, if it’s not the biggest, threats in relation to firearms trafficking worldwide, and we are working to address it.

Criminal organisations are evolving the methods by which they traffic firearms, and some of these trends are picked up by certain countries. If we exchange this information, it will allow us to identify these new methods and come up with ways to stop them early on. In this sense, information exchange allows us to get a better overview of global threats, develop our operational activities accordingly and share best practices on how to prevent these threats in the future.

What can jurisdictions do domestically to facilitate international corporations and information exchange on SALW?

Whilst there are policies and initiatives both at the international and regional levels, their success relies on the involvement of individual countries and national agencies. This means that to develop mechanisms of international cooperation, we need to guarantee that effective national structures are in place.

A big part of this is the development of National Firearms Focal Points (NFFPs), with the EU encouraging all EUMS to develop NFFPs as a structure for national coordination on firearms crime and trafficking. We are not the only region in the world that recognises the value of NFFPs; Latin America has huge interest, the Caribbean has a roadmap dedicated to their development, and the Western Balkans has been proactive in implementing NFFPs, many of which are far better developed than those of EUMS.

Data collection is an area where NFFPs enhance national capabilities, helping collect the right data and properly classify it. Data standardisation is a key challenge when it comes to the exchange of information in the EU – if national data is not comparable with the data of others, then it’s difficult to get a regional perspective on the threats we’re facing. NFFPs help in this regard, often engaging with international partners to ensure a common approach to the collection and recording of data on firearms crime and trafficking.

So, the NFFP is a structure that we continue to promote because it’s essential to building a better intelligence picture at a national level, which facilitates effective cooperation and information exchange at the international level. By standardising the creation of NFFPs as we do with financial investigation units, we can align the bottom-up and top-down approaches and better understand firearm threats.

What role do EMPACT FIREARMS play in cooperation and information exchange in Europe?

EMPACT touches on every topic we’ve discussed; our goal is to have a comprehensive response to threats with an operational purpose. But to get this right, we need to have a good intelligence picture and ensure the exchange of information between key stakeholders in Europe. We reinforce these principles at the national level through capacity building, often by conducting joint training programmes and providing operational tools to law enforcement.

Innovation can be a game changer, with new technology and ideas offering plenty of new opportunities to tackle the threat of firearm trafficking. Scanning for these opportunities and assessing their utility in addressing these threats is one of the many activities of EMPACT because if we keep doing the same things in the same way that have always been done, we will never get results. This involves bringing together experts from different EUMS, not just from law enforcement but other key actors from the judiciary and the private sector.

For instance, when it comes to the fast parcel as a method for trafficking firearms, we’ve brought people together from the postal industry to understand how fast parcel works, as well as develop methods on how to effectively investigate online and train operators to spot instances of firearms trafficking.

All these efforts need resources. This involves generating support both at the political level through implementing the right policies and at the economic level by getting the necessary funding. Of course, this means we cannot address every issue, but EMPACT aligns its activities with the EU’s ten priorities in the fight against serious and organised crime, one of which being firearms trafficking, providing a platform to generate support and coordinate with partners.

Why is it important that the EU cooperates with third countries on SALW control?

We cannot tackle firearms trafficking or any threat solely within the EU. Of course, within the EU Schengen Area, we do not have any borders, which offers us many benefits. But it also gives criminals opportunities to traffic illicit goods within the EU, which demands cooperation between EUMS and those states who sit on our external borders. This is why we also need to understand the global picture and have a joint approach to tackling these threats.

Cooperating to tackle illicit trafficking is central to our engagement with the Western Balkan jurisdictions, Moldova, as well as countries in the MENA region. Now, we are strengthening our cooperation with Latin America and, of course, with the US and Canada, coordinating responses and learning from each other.

Cooperation with Ukraine has been a priority area for us and didn’t just begin after Russia’s aggression. We’ve been able to build a strong relationship between Ukraine and the EU over the years, strengthening legislation and implementing measures to control weapons and ammunition. The exchange of information plays a big part in this, with Ukraine having an operational agreement with Europe that allows them to use state-of-the-art technologies like SIENA.

What role does international cooperation and information exchange play in an NSCS?

It’s essential to a NSCS. International cooperation and information exchange require a bottom-up approach, starting with identifying gaps in national structures and working together to reinforce national capabilities. We need to have a good understanding of firearm threats at the national level to have any sort of regional or international approach, which comes from an effective national strategy and the support of policymakers. As mentioned earlier, NFFPs play a big part in this process, improving data collection and exchange and building the wider intelligence picture to inform joint actions by law enforcement.

§

To conclude, this instalment of the blog series has discussed the necessity of international cooperation and information exchange in a successful NSCS, the role of regional platforms such as EMPACT, and the steps jurisdictions can take domestically to enhance coordination at the international level.

Next month’s blog post will cover the integral role of national legislative frameworks in a NSCS, and how laws, regulations and policies can support law enforcement to effectively combat SALW criminality.