28 Sep 2011

Cooks sets up transnational crime unit

7:20 am on 28 September 2011

The Cook Islands police commissioner, Ma'ara Tetava, says a transnational crime unit being established this week will allow closer links with other Cook Islands government agencies and the wider Pacific.

The unit will be opened on Wednesday by the prime minister Henry Puna and officials from the Australian Federal Police which is funding the office.

Mr Tetava says the unit will link the Cook Islands to the Samoa-based Pacific Transnational Crime Network.

He says initially there will be only one police officer assigned to the unit but they hope to involved other agencies.

"It's not going to be a police only trans-national crime unit. It will be an inter agency trans-national crime unit where we are hoping to get an official from customs and immigration. It's a step towards better inter-agency partnership support between ourselves, customs and immigration, here in the Cook Islands, and hopefully in the [wider] Pacific as well."