According to the General Department of Customs, Operation Mekong Dragon is a series of joint action campaigns between Customs agencies and other law enforcement agencies in the Asia- Pacific region to combat illegal trafficking of drugs, wildlife, wildlife products listed in CITES on all routes, co-initiated by Vietnam Customs and China Customs.
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Mekong Dragon Campaign 6 will be implemented in 2024 in the direction of upgrading and expanding the scale of the Campaign implementation (Photo: MP)
The initiative was launched in 2018 with technical support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for Asia and the Pacific (RILO AP –WCO).
To date, the Campaign has completed 5 phases (from 2018 to 2023), achieving significant results. The Campaign is assessed by RILO AP and international law enforcement organizations as one of the most successful Control Campaigns in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of the number of participants and the number of cases updated to the Campaign's common information system. A lot of intelligence information has been warned and exchanged between countries to contribute to the successful arrest of many large cases of smuggling and illegal transportation of drugs, wild animals and plants.
Since 2022, the Mekong Dragon Campaign has been officially included in the Vietnam-China Joint Statement during the official visit to China by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. In 2023, the Campaign continues to be included in the joint statement between the two countries (Point (3), Section 4.3) with the content: “… continue to deepen cooperation in law enforcement against smuggling, promote the “Mekong Dragon” international law enforcement coordination action to achieve more results”.
Following the success of the Mekong Dragon Campaign series, implementing the direction of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Customs said it will continue to deploy the Mekong Dragon Campaign 6 in 2024 in the direction of: Upgrading and expanding the scale of the Campaign, enhancing information sharing activities, and cooperating in post-arrest investigations to promptly detect transnational smuggling and illegal transportation of drugs and wildlife.
To date, the Campaign has received consensus from 25 Customs agencies and law enforcement agencies and international organizations (including 20 customs agencies and 5 international organizations).
Previously, on April 16-18, 2024, the General Department of Customs in coordination with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) successfully organized the Opening Conference to deploy the Mekong Dragon Campaign Phase 6 in Ho Chi Minh City with the participation of 64 domestic and international delegates (in which international delegates included delegates from customs agencies from 16 countries and 04 international law enforcement organizations, Vietnamese delegates included: delegates from the Drug Crime Investigation Police Department C04 and the Environmental Crime Prevention and Control Police Department C05 under the Ministry of Public Security, delegates from the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Department and a number of units under the General Department of Customs).
The conference marked the official launch of the Campaign in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference contents included announcements on the implementation of activities within the framework of the Mekong Dragon Campaign 6, exchange and sharing of experiences between countries in the enforcement of combating illegal trafficking and transportation of wild animals and plants (CITES) and drugs, and training in skills of collecting, managing, exchanging, analyzing information, and investigating to serve the deployment of the Red Team within the scope of the Campaign.
In parallel, the General Department of Customs will preside over and coordinate with C04 and C05 to organize the implementation of Mekong Dragon Campaign 6 across the entire industry. Activities within the framework of the Campaign expected to be implemented by the General Department of Customs include: Organizing seminars, specialized training courses for the entire industry, participating in and coordinating group meetings, joint investigations, and activities of key teams to analyze, collect information and investigate.../.
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