News

EULEX trains Kosovo Border Police Officers

11 July 2016

The detection of forged travel documents is one of the tasks of every Border Police Officer at the borders in every country. With overall development of  IT and related technology, forgery of documents is constantly evolving thus increasing the number of high-quality counterfeits used by criminals around the world.

On the 6 July 2016, the EULEX Border and Boundary Unit North presented a two day training workshop to approximately 50 Kosovo Border Police officers (KBP). The aim of the workshop was to train the KBP to detect forged travel documents and to give an overview how and why the detecting of false  travel documents is important.

After commencing several joint patrols between EULEX and KBP the EULEX officers noticed that most of KBP officers, although having sufficient knowledge and experience   in their area of responsibility, lacked the sufficient skills to identify the fraudulent documents.

The main activities of the training delivered by EULEX experts focused on the overview of latest trends of forging travel documents in Balkans, EU countries and worldwide. The training also provided practical examples of counterfeits and demonstrating the methods of their detection. 

The Area of Responsibility of two northern KBP Police stations covers approximately 140 km of the Administrative Boundary Line with a large number of known alternative roads. The area is controlled by 64 KBP officers from Zubin Potok and Leposavic border police stations.

EULEX presented a training manual with the up-to date document forgery detection techniques which will be used as a tool to effectively fight fraud in Kosovo.