On 6 December 2002, GUUAM Foreign Ministers Council approved “GUAM-US Framework Program of Trade and Transport Facilitation, Ensuring Border and Customs Control, Combating Terrorism, Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking”.
The GUAM-US Framework Program includes:
- Creation of the GUAM Virtual Center;
- Creation of single information space for exchange of the data, related to the antiterrorist activities;
- Proposals, regarding the realization of the projects for strengthening cooperation and interaction of the GUAM states in the border and custom spheres.
The GUAM Virtual Center for combating terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking and other serious kinds of crimes is an international association of the law enforcement agencies and other state authorities of the GUAM member countries, which is formed in accordance with the Agreement on Establishment of the GUAM Virtual Center and the Statute of the GUAM Virtual Center, signed in Yalta on July 4, 2003, and operates on the base of using GUAM Interstate Information Management System (IIMS).
The Virtual Center serves for provision of the communications, analysis and information exchange in conditions of real time and for facilitating cooperation in carrying out joint operations and coordination of the investigations of the most serious crimes.
In accordance with the overall goals of the GUAM projects, the Virtual Center shall contribute to regional stability and economic development and pursues the strategic aims of cooperation, announced by GUAM Yalta Charter in 2001.
According to the international regulations and national legislations of the Member States, the GUAM Virtual Center carries out cooperation in following fields:
- Combating terrorism;
- Combating organized crime;
- Combating illegal armed units;
- Combating illegal trafficking of: the arms and ammunition, military equipment, some kinds of raw materials, stuffs, facilities and technologies, which could be used for their production; explosives and toxic agents;
- Combating illegal trafficking of: nuclear materials, radioactive materials, equipment and technologies of the dual purpose, which could be used in creation and production of the mass destruction arms.
- Combating illegal trafficking of drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors;
- Combating falsification of: payment means, securities, financial documents, IDs, their trafficking and illegal use;
- Combating the crimes in economic and financial spheres, including the crimes, connected with digression of tax payments, “laundering” money, and corruption;
- Combating smuggling and other custom infringements;
- Combating the crimes against personality and also property crimes;
- Search of the individuals, suspected or charged with committing crimes and also individuals, digressing from the criminal responsibility or serving sentences;
- Search of the individuals, lost without trace; identification of the individuals and also non-identified corpses;
- Combating thefts, illegal vehicle trafficking;
- Combating illegal migration, illicit displacement and human being and organ trafficking;
- Combating crimes in the sphere of using computer technologies and networks;
- Combating crimes in the sphere of the intellectual property;
- Combating hijacking aircrafts, ships and other transport means.
The Virtual Center supports and initiates information programs, which reflect assessment of the operative situation in the region. The Center strives to head the effective, joint programs in the law enforcement sphere, using capabilities and competences of each member state. The Virtual Center plans to set up possibility of automated access to the information through using advanced information technologies and distributed database.
Finally, the Virtual Center render assistance to the law enforcement agencies and their officers in timely analysis and secure distribution of information, intelligence and patterns, threat evaluations and other subjects of interest of the GUAM Member States by following trends:
- Operative information exchange in conditions of real time;
- Conducting joint regional operations with using operative data exchange in automated mode;
- Creation of the joint investigation groups, activity object of which is transnational criminal networks;
- Analysis of information, related to the law enforcement sphere for conducting adequate assessment of the available threats;
- Creation of the unified data bank of distributed type for expanding national analytical capabilities;
- Creation of technical and telecommunication infrastructure of the Virtual Center on the base of GUAM Interstate Information Management System.
