Thirty senior officers of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on Friday completed the first-ever training course in criminal investigation at the Police College in Accra. The course exposed the officers to the essentials and fundamentals of physical handling of exhibits, crime scene management, roles and sources of intelligence gathering, international and trans-national crime, forensic criminal investigations, ethics, law and human rights, fingerprints and uses in criminal investigations among other areas. At the closing of the two-week course, Mrs. Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Administration noted that the increasing sophistication of crime, which had assumed a trans-national nature, held negative consequences on the socio-economic development of the country. She said however that increased collaboration between the security agencies could help negate the threat, and thus ensure secure and peaceful environment for the citizenry. Mrs. Mills-Robertson lauded the collaboration in the field of training between the Police Service and CEPS, adding that the partnership would enhance collective capacity building in dealing with the challenges of crime in a collaborative manner. She said the service would continue to device joint strategies to efficiently crack down on organized crime such as human trafficking, vehicle smuggling, money laundering and arms and ammunitions trafficking based on experiences shared during the course. She was optimistic that the knowledge gained during the training would enable CEPS personnel deal decisively with situations that threatened law and order. Mr Paul Adubofour, Deputy Commissioner, Administration and Human Resource of the CEPS said it was the belief of the management that building the capacity of personnel in investigative skills was the only sure way that the service could confront emerging threats and other sophisticated criminal activities. He implored the officers to appreciate the fact that the security challenges facing the country were complex and enormous, calling for extensive collaborative efforts between the security agencies to mitigate them. Mr. Adubofour asked the personnel to view the training programme as an opportunity to intensify networking with the Police Service, because “Our efforts must be complementary”. “When it comes to national security there must be a convergence of interest at all times. But we cannot achieve convergence of interest without effectively collaborating”, he added. He tasked the officers to transform the knowledge and principles gained at the course into concrete steps to improve the way the service responded to crime. The course, which is part of CEPS’s capacity building strategy, is intended to increase the service’s ability to combat crime in the form of smuggling and falsification of documents in order to plug loop holes in avenues for revenue leakage and to provide security. Source: GNA