The Italian Financial Police has donated two speedboats to the Montenegrin Police Directorate, which will be used by the Montenegrin border police for surveillance of the state border at sea in the detection and suppression of cross-border crime. The Police Directorate announced that the ceremonial handover of the speedboats, which can be used in extreme weather conditions, was held today in the Port of Budva, after the International Conference "Joint Response to the Suppression of Illegal Migration and their Impact on Terrorism".
Two patrol vessels were delivered by the Director of the Central Directorate for Migration and Border Police of Italy, Masimo Bontempi, to the Assistant Director of the Police Directorate - department Border Police Vesko Damjanovic.
Damjanovic thanked Bontempi and the Italian Financial Police on a valuable donation, as well as on the training organized by the colleagues from Italy in Gaeta for two crews who will use the donated vessels in the execution of entrusted tasks.
He said that he believes this is the beginning of even closer and more direct cooperation between the Montenegrin and Italian police in the fight against all forms of organized cross-border crime. Bontempi stressed that the Montenegrin police is a reliable and confidential partner to the Italian and financial police.
He said he was confident that the two countries' police would undertake joint activities that would contribute to even greater security at sea, which is in the interest of the citizens of Italy and Montenegro.
The general of the Unit in the Italian Financial Police, Ricardo Rapanoti, said that the police is a partner of Frontex in the protection of the sea border.
According to him, the cooperation with the Montenegrin police in detecting and preventing crime is very important to the Financial Police, especially all forms of smuggling.
Italian Ambassador to Montenegro Luka Zelioli believes that the donation is an expression of quality strategic cooperation between the two police.
He said that the donation is a confirmation that the excellent relations between the two countries do not take place only in the fields of politics, culture and economy, but that they are also important in the area of significance for the security of the borders of Italy and Montenegro.
Two patrol vessels were donated to the Montenegrin police based on the "Memorandum of Understanding and Strengthening Cooperation in the Fields of Border Management and Migration, Combating Illegal Migration and Smuggling of Migrants, Especially at Sea".
The Memorandum was signed by the Director of the Police Directorate Veselin Veljovic and the head of the National Police of Italy, Franco Gabrieli, in October last year in Brindisi.
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Text by MINA News, on March 21st 2019, read more at Vijesti
