He made the statement at a working session with Public Security Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Thanh in Lyon, France, on December 16. This was the first visit made by a Vietnamese public security senior officer to Interpol General Secretariat headquarters since the country joined the organisation in 1991.

At the meeting, Stock hailed the ministry for sending officials to work at his agency’s main office and recommended it assigning officers to the Interpol’s Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore and the Liaison Office for Asia and the South Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand.

For his part, Thanh lauded Stock’s initiatives on restructuring the General Secretariat and positive outcomes of collaboration in combating crime on the global scale.

He said the presence of Interpol across the world, particularly its three coordination agencies in Lyon, Singapore and Buenos Aires, has served urgent requests of state members in dealing with legal differences among them.

Thanh also informed his host on Vietnam’s difficulties in working with other countries to combat crime in terms of financial resources and experiences. 

He stated that the Interpol’s intelligence has helped Vietnam and other countries in the region in their fight against trans-border crime and cybercrime.

The same day, the Vietnamese deputy minister also met with other Interpol officials, during which he learned about outcomes of the organisation’s anti-crime activities in the Asia-Pacific region and access to the Interpol criminal information system.

In an interview with the Vietnam News Agency, Thanh spoke highly of the collaboration between Vietnamese police and the Interpol in combating terrorism, transnational and cyber criminals, which he said has brought about important results.

Thanh stressed that the cooperation will continue with a focus on information exchange and human resources training in a bid to help Vietnam build capacity given the expansion of organised crime.

VNA