EL PACCTO 2.0 – Technical assistance programme to fight transnational organised crime

Transnational organised crime is one of the main challenges facing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Indeed, there are many crimes that cross national borders (trafficking in drugs, arms, and human beings; money laundering, cybercrime, environmental crime, etc.), and these require coordinated responses.

It’s against this backdrop that EL PACCTO 2.0 is developing a joint framework for cooperation between the European Union and the Latin America and Caribbean region in the justice and security sectors. The programme fosters regional political dialogue, supports specialised institutions and their operations, and encourages the sharing of experiences and good practices between the two regions.

EL PACCTO 2.0 works with all the criminal justice system actors: police forces, prosecutors, magistrates, prison administrations, and regional international cooperation institutions.

The programme has the following goals:

• Build the capacities of judicial and security institutions
• Improve international and regional cooperation
• Promote exchange of information and joint investigations
• Bolster efforts to fight money laundering and corruption
• Mainstream a gender and human rights approach into security policies
• Develop operational responses to the main forms of organised crime.

Caribbean countries are being fully integrated into this regional cooperation process for the first time.

Expertise France plays a strategic role within the coalition, working on governance, coordination, and monitoring for the programme.

We are guiding several priority areas of the programme:

• EL PACCTO 2.0’s innovation laboratory, which explores use of artificial intelligence to fight organised crime
• Identification and dismantling of high-risk criminal networks, in line with European security priorities (EMPACT)
• The “Justice and Organised Crime” dialogue to strengthen judicial cooperation between Caribbean and EU countries
• Protection of indigenous communities facing the expansion of criminal networks within their territories.

Expertise France is also helping to strengthen international cooperation on the recovery of criminal assets and the fight against money laundering.

EL PACCTO 2.0 has helped achieve several major developments:

• Adoption of an EU-CLASI Joint Declaration on security priorities
• Support for 132 Latin American and Caribbean institutions in strengthening their capacities to fight organised crime
• Support for the creation of cooperation agreements between Eurojust and several Latin American countries
• Support for the creation of several joint investigation teams between countries of the European Union and those of Latin America and the Caribbean, dedicated to the dismantling of criminal networks
• Development of new regional dialogue processes on artificial intelligence and organised crime.

Through these actions, EL PACCTO 2.0 helps strengthen security for the population, the effectiveness of public institutions, and the rule of law throughout the region.