Ronald Noble

Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips has thanked INTERPOL for the assistance for security arrangements for Cricket World Cup 2007. Dr. Phillips conveyed his appreciation on Friday during a meeting with INTERPOL's Secretary General, Ronald Noble.

He disclosed that INTERPOL has committed four senior officers from its headquarters in Lyon, France. They are based in Trinidad and have been providing important technical assistance to CARICOM since September last year.

Through INTERPOL, the South African Police Services has provided very significant assistance and is to deploy more than seven officers who will serve in a range of critical areas in support of CARICOM personnel.

All hosting countries

Secretary General Noble noted that INTERPOL has been working with all nine hosting countries, as well as neighbouring countries to support the entire region in preparing a major security programme for CWC 2007.

He noted that one of the gravest threats today is that terrorists and other international criminals use falsified stolen or lost passports to hide their identities.

But to address this threat, INTERPOL is providing the region with technology that allows law enforcement officers at airports and seaports to instantly check passports against INTERPOL's global database of stolen and lost travel documents - a database that contains information on more than 13million such documents from or 120 countries.