Fighting Crimes at Sea

Gregory Soberanis

The coming together of the coast guard, police department and fisheries is the most effective crime fighting strategy at sea.  Aside from support from these agencies, the coast guard also relies heavily on its partnership with other non-governmental organizations to provide useful information in detecting crimes at sea.

Gregory Soberanis, Acting Commandant, Belize Coast Guard

“The issue of crime at sea is one that requires an inter-agency approach, inter-agency collaboration.  So, on the domestic front we’ve been working very closely with our key government stakeholders: Fisheries, the police department, working very closely with the community.  The community is a key partner in the entire maritime security apparatus and we’ve also been working with our N.G.O.s.  The N.G.O.s provide a tremendous support to the maritime security efforts that we conduct at sea and so it is the collaboration of all these entities, government and non-government through collaboration, through partnership, through networking, through the economy of efforts.  We’ve been able to strategically deploy and employ our teams in areas to mitigate these incidents at sea.”