Two Colombian police units have no data on AFP agreement — ABC News Australia
Two units of Colombia’s National Police said they have no data on an agreement with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) concerning a new international joint investigation team focused on combating drug trafficking. In May, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said that the AFP and New Zealand police would fund the International Joint Investigations Team (IJIT), intended to gather evidence on illegal drug shipments.
As ABC News Australia reports, the team was to include AFP officers in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. They were expected to work with Colombian, US and Mexican law enforcement agencies, as well as Interpol, to counter drug shipments across the Pacific to Australia.
Only a letter of intent
Colombia’s National Police anti-drug department said in response to an El Tiempo freedom of information request that it had no registered data on protocols, agreements or procedures related to the IJIT. It also said it had not provided the AFP with operational drug intelligence and had not conducted joint operational measures, including drug seizures or arrests, within the framework of the group.
According to the department, there is currently only a letter of intent defining the framework for cooperation and information exchange. ABC News notes that the document was jointly signed in August by Major General Jesús Alejandro Barrera Peña of Colombia’s National Police and the AFP. The letter does not mention the IJIT and does not define the anti-drug department’s functions, responsibilities or procedures within this mechanism.
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The group has not yet started work
An AFP spokesperson said the IJIT had not yet begun operations. According to the spokesperson, in August the AFP and Colombia’s National Police concluded an additional agreement to the letter of intent that will allow the group to focus on transnational organised crime networks. The AFP did not specify when the IJIT would begin work.
Colombia’s police criminal investigation department also said it had no data that would make it possible to establish AFP involvement in 174 drug-trafficking investigations conducted from January 1, 2025, to October 6 of this year. In addition, the agency said it had no information on the use of Colombian anti-drug intelligence to identify or intercept suspected vessels in the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean Sea as part of the IJIT.
The AFP reported that since the beginning of the year, local and international law enforcement agencies had seized 17 tonnes of drugs, mainly cocaine, in the Pacific Ocean. According to ABC News, as of July, most such seizures had taken place in French Polynesia, and AFP officers had not physically participated in the interceptions. None of these interceptions occurred in Australian territorial waters.
