 Welcome back to our conference today. As a reminder, all conference materials are available for download at the bottom of the events page, and there's a link to that in the chat. The event is being recorded and will be available on the NWC YouTube page after the event. Welcome to our second panel on criminal activities in the maritime environment. The moderator for this panel is Admiral Guillermo Barrera. Admiral Guillermo Barrera has been a distinguished international fellow at the Naval War College since October 2011, where he teaches an elective and political warfare and supports a wide variety of programs across the Naval War College campus. His main assignments as flag officer were Commander of the Colombian Navy, Chief of Operations of the Navy, Commander Caribbean Naval Forces, and Chief of Integrated Action at the Joint Command of the Colombian Military Forces. He had three command tours on Colombian ships. As operational commander and commander of the Navy during the time of the government of President Alvaro Uribe, he was part of the government team that transformed Colombia from the brink of failure to disability and democracy. Admiral Barrera has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Naval Sciences, both from the Colombian Naval Academy. He holds a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School. He also completed Naval Command College class of 1993 at the Naval War College in Newport Rhode Island. Please join me in welcoming Admiral Barrera to lead our second panel today. Thank you so much, Commander, you are very kind with your presentation. Honored to be the moderator of this panel in criminal activities in the maritime environment. We will focus on the four questions that were asked by Commander Cameron. So basically framing the problem, determining what does it mean for the strategic environment for navies, for coast guards, and we will have one example of one country, what they are doing in her country to work on those areas. Then we will open the conversation for all participants in the Q&A period. Before we introduce our speakers, we want to provide some administrative guidance. First, all comments reflect the position of the speakers and attendees, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the US Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, or the US government. Please keep your microphones muted and cameras off. Please post all questions and comments in the chat for the question and answer period after the presentation. Now, let's begin. This panel has three great presenters. First, let me introduce Ms. Siri Byun, Deputy Head of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime UNODC Global Maritime Crime Program, GNPC, based on the Global Programs Headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her main responsibility areas are program strategy, portfolio development, and program visibility, as well as being the program gender focal point. In addition, Siri has a specific focus on providing programming guidance and support to GNCP implementation in the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and West Africa, Gulf of Guinea. She's an Norwegian with a law degree from the University of Oslo. After university, Siri worked with the Norwegian law enforcement for a year before moving abroad. She has been working as a trainee for the EFTA Surveillance Authority in Brussels and joined the UNODC Headquarters in Vienna in 2007 as an associate expert within the UNODC's anti-corruption branch. In 2013, she joined the Justice Section in the Global Maritime Crime Program before moving to Sri Lanka. She was based in Nigeria, where she was responsible for the program's implementation in the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa with main focus on legal reform and capacity building in maritime law enforcement. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Siri Byun. Thank you very much for this opening admiral and good evening from Sri Lanka. I'll wait for my presentation to be screened please. Thank you. So first of all, I would like to thank the US Naval War College for inviting UNODC and the Global Maritime Crime Program to the conference and this panel discussion on criminal activities in the maritime environment. My part is intended as a scene-centered to better understand the types of crimes we are confronted with and under which circumstances maritime law enforcement are operating. Let me start by saying that maritime space covers 70% of the earth and approximately 90% of the world's trade is carried out by sea. The maritime space is further recognized as the world's largest crime scene, and illicit actors of all sorts use the maritime domain to pursue criminal profit, move goods and people illegally, dump waste and support networks that perpetrate transnational crime and terrorism. Next, this is the outline on my presentation. We're talking about different types of transnational organized crime occurring at sea. And we will have a look at some of them though this is not an exhaustive list that will be presented. Further, I will look at the interconnectivity of several of the listed crimes and how these pose some challenges to the sea response, including jurisdiction and law enforcement powers. Also, there's value in looking at the broader picture of the criminal business and the organized element of it. Next, I would like to look at the comprehensive criminal justice response to the matter of criminal activities in the maritime environment. Next, as already mentioned, the list provided of types of criminal activities in the maritime environment is not exhaustive. But I'm mentioning those which fall under the area of GMCP's mandate and which I know will be further discussed in more detail and from different angles by my fellow panelists. So I will add a few emerging issues that are not on the slide but worth mentioning. I've used some definitions and comments from our close partner on research, the stable seas which was spoken at the previous session, and their maritime security index. Next, starting with terrorism at sea. Terrorism is one of the many forms of crime usually associated with land, but which also exist at sea. Terrorists target military and civilian vessels at sea and import, but also make use of the sea as a means of transporting fighters and their weapons to the scene of their attacks. They also use proceeds from both legitimate and illegitimate trade to help fund their activities. Next, looking at illicit trafficking of nuclear materials. Spending on the previous topic of terrorism, illicit trafficking of nuclear materials would include the protection against nuclear terrorism. Further, illicit trafficking of nuclear materials can lead to nuclear proliferation and the possible construction of improvised nuclear devices, or radiological dispersal and exposure devices. Next, piracy. This is a financial crime that GMCP started looking at, and we're talking about the unlawful act of threat of violence, detention or theft for financial or material gain. Without going into further legal definition of piracy, this involves stealing a cargo and kidnapping a crew for ransom, and we have seen the massive impact piracy has on the shipping industry, global trade, as well as coastal states. We have experienced it in the Indian Ocean, and we're still struggling with the crime in the Gulf of Guinea. Fiery arms trafficking. Frequently traded illicit items such as arms are easily transported by sea as shipping containers are seldom inspected, import presenting a convenient and cost-effective mode of transport. And often seen in certain hotspots, often conflict-driven areas where the demand for weapons are high. A global flow of weapons to non-state actors with violent objectives fuels conflict in unstable regions, in addition to illicit sale of legitimate products, circumvent the formal economy by bypassing import and export regulations, and undermine authorized dealers of search commodities. Next. Crimes in the fishery sector. The issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a massive problem as we will see in a separate panel discussion. Marine fisheries are essential for many coastal communities, whether that is for artisanal or small-scale fishers, as well as large industrial fleets that make fisheries a critical contributor to national economies. Not only are you fishing with crimes associated with the fishery sector, where other crimes take place on a fishing vessel such as drug trafficking and weapons smuggling, or crimes in the fisheries value chain, such as fraud, forgery and corruption. Next. Drug trafficking. The maritime routes are extensively used by traffickers of drugs, where there are limited chances of getting caught in large consignments can be hidden in compartments containers and the likes, using pleasure craft thousand container ships. We see a typical cocaine trafficking from South America opiates trade in the Indian Ocean and synthetic drugs in Southeast Asia. Just to mention a few. Drug trafficking has a broad economic cost health implications and impact stability in countries and regions. Next. Human trafficking in smuggling on my words, the trafficking in humans and irregular migration by sea often involves traversing open waters in unsafe and overcrowded vessels with untrained crew and with an immediate threat of capsizing and drowning. Law enforcement often end up in star operations while conducting law enforcement in trying to disrupt the criminal activity of smuggling. We see your regular irregular migration as a hot topic in the Mediterranean in Southeast Asia and in Latin America. Next. My last one would be breaches to UN sanctions. So James a PSS member states in sustainably deterring maritime trafficking violation of UN Security Council sanctions regimes, including disruption of trade, illicit and illicit commodities in support of terrorist groups. Other movements are relevant to many UN Security Council sanction regimes, and so the success of sanctions regimes imposed on Iran, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan or Yemen, heavily depends on the international community's capacity to monitor vessel at sea through all available means. In addition to the crimes listed on the slide, I would like to add some emerging crimes which might be mentioned later. One is trafficking in minerals, which occurs as an evolving issue. Another matter is to expand the maritime environmental crime approach beyond fisheries crime to include tackling of marine pollution, as well as looking at the maritime security element in the blue economy. Next. We often don't see these listed crimes in silo or operating independently. There's often an interconnectivity between criminal activities, whether that is vessels involved in a regular migration, also trafficking drugs or weapons, or the use of fishing vessels in drug trafficking, as well as human trafficking enforced labor, in addition to terrorist groups getting involved in trafficking in illicit commodities to support our business. So that brings me to the next point, which looks at the maritime law enforcement response, which will vary and require different operational procedures depending on whether you are handling irregular immigration, or securing a crime scene where arms and weapons are being trafficked, or IED components are on board. This picture includes complex euridictional matters and several different legal frameworks will apply depending on which crime we are responding to, and in which maritime song the crime is occurring. The modus operandi might change according to where the criminal groups see benefit. This was illustrated the way piracy groups operated. In East Africa, the main target was kidnapping of the crew of ransom, often Western foreigners, which gave the highest profits. The groups mainly targeted oil transport or got involved in illegal oil one print. And the main value was the commodity that later changed as oil prices went down, and the groups saw more value in the kidnapping model. Despite the crimes occurring at sea, most of these crimes fall under an organized network which is banished online. These are professional businesses fueling and facilitating the operations and profiting on the criminal activity. The criminal groups see where maritime law enforcement and legal frameworks are strengthened, and then move into new areas where they have identified a gap or loophole. I would like to refer to a study we did in partnership with the University of Copenhagen and their Center for Military Studies back in 2018. The findings are still valid. And where they state that beyond individual forms of crime we have to look at the broader crime complex at sea, which is characterized by interconnectivity between different types of crime and dynamics, causing crime to reposition thematically into other types of criminal ventures and or to reposition geographically when pressures of deterrence are exerted. These dynamics are referred to as ballooning effects. By way of example, there's evidence that former piracy action groups moved into other types of crimes at the piracy business model came under pressure due to various measures of deterrence. The mutually reinforcing effects of naval patrols industries self protection and regional prosecutions rendered piracy a dangerous and non profitable business. The advent of these circumstances roughly coincided with the then rapid destabilization of Yemen, which led to tip and some becoming a more profitable and less risky business for former pirates. Having looked at the broader crime complex at sea, the main conclusion is that it's not useful to tackle individual types of maritime crime in isolation. In order to tackle the issue. It's not enough to only look at disruption at sea, but to rather take a comprehensive approach, which includes the root causes and the king pins and organized crime element behind the crimes. This required strengthen maritime security. Next, before I conclude, I would like to just mention the value in a comprehensive response which involves the full criminal justice system. This requires a whole of government approach. We're all relevant relevant agencies cooperate and coordinate in handling my time crime from sea to court. I thank you and I hand over to my fellow panelists who will reflect further on this. Thank you over to you Admiral. Thank you very much city you are very very kind. I would like to introduce now our second speaker. Dr. Joshua Tullis, a political military analyst specializing in maritime security and Arctic strategy. As a research scientist at the center of naval analysis, he focuses on helping uniform and civilian leaders develop a strategy and policy informed by empirical analysis. In a headquarters, Dr. Tullis serves as a project director leading cross disciplinary teams, executing the studies for commands across the Navy, and the office of the Secretary of Defense. Examples include three congressional mandates projects in 2020 and 2021 on Arctic and maritime security topics. When not at headquarters, he embeds with the fleet serving as a house in house analytic advisor through CNA field program. In 2018 he embarked the aircraft carrier, Harry S Truman, working for the strike group commander. Dr. Joshua Tullis returned to the field to support the commander of us six feet. He holds a PhD in international relations is an adjunct professor at the George University in George Washington University, and is the author of the war for waters pirates terrorist traffickers and maritime insecurity. Dr. Joshua Tullis the audience is yours. Admiral thank you very much for the introduction good morning to everybody over in North America and South America and good evening or good afternoon to anybody in my half of the world right now. I'm going to reiterate at the top that comments here are my own don't reflect those of CNA or the Navy. I'm here to talk today about particular subsection of the issue of criminal activity in the maritime environment, and in particular my brief is intended to focus on maritime crime and placing that in the strategic larger strategic groups, and then to pivot to address the question of maritime crimes implications for for Navy's and the way I'm going to frame that is first talking about maritime insecurity as a nexus issue and in many ways I'm going to build on these comments about some of the interconnectivity between maritime security across the domain and then talk from an implications standpoint with respect to both operational risks, but also some of the larger strategic challenges that this issue brings up. So first talking about maritime crime and insecurity in its larger strategic context, the maritime domain is fundamentally a multifunctional arena, and as a consequence in it's a space where security dynamics overlap with one another when I give talks or right about maritime insecurity one of the things I like to harp on is that what brings all of these issues together is that they are all happening in the same substratas they are all happening in the same domain, and that brings different types of insecurity into into contact with one another. So let's sort of formulate or think about this in two different ways. The first is that the maritime arena is important for different strategic reasons to different kinds of actors right the sea is a resource. The season medium for transportation and trade. The sea is an area of sovereign space where states in force their their claims to territoriality. The sea is a major component of the of the environment right and as a consequence the sea faces different kinds of risks that can overlap with one another right so competition and pollution, terrorism conflict piracy interstate conflict, large scale criminal activity pollution exploitation, all of those interact with one another and in different ways in which the maritime spaces is important. The objective of formulating that is to think about the different overlapping components of security, each of which has an element or in a racks with the maritime domain, and we're all those come together as the concept of maritime security so human security which is a focus of our conference today is one element of this but we can see that there's clear overlaps between for example, human security and environmental security right degradation to the maritime environment has a direct impact on human security food security, which then creates implications for national security in the blue economy, all of these are interrelated with one another, which means that whenever we're talking about issues of sufficient scale when it comes to maritime crime, we're inherently talking about issues that can bleed into what some might consider more strategic dimensions. So while maritime security is multifunctional maritime insecurity is also multifunctional right and again, it's important to highlight and discuss these cross functions, because it helps explain and this I think reacts in some way to to the excellent connection by Dr Curtis before Dr, Dr bell before talking about you know why why does this matter one of the reasons why why maritime security matters maritime crime matters in particular is because these things aren't happening in isolation with one another So we see in these are just some examples connections between piracy and illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. We know that there are strong the international labor organization has done a lot of work documented connections between fishing and human trafficking enforced labor in the Caribbean we have documented cases of relationship between gun running and drug smuggling those are mutually reinforcing networks. We know for example about potential relationships between drug smuggling and terror financing in the Gulf of Guinea we know that relationships between illegal oil bunkering and insurgency right so maritime crimes don't exist in isolation from one another and as a consequence they have the potential to ladder up into more strategic considerations. One example building on this view noted is the relationship between piracy and terrorism and there are actually two ways that I think that we can usefully think about maritime crime using this as a sort of a mini case study. The first is that piracy and terrorism can emerge from shared environmental conditions which is to say that the same underlying conditions of insecurity can create multiple forms of maritime crime. Sometimes that means that these emerge in the same physical domain, and it can create the can do or the appearance that there's a deeper underlying relationship between the two that may not actually be there at sort of the one of the Holy Grails for the for the study of piracy has been establishing clear connections between piracy and terrorism that aren't always actually there. But one of the reasons why analysts frequently look for that is because the conditions that create both of those types of insecurity are the same. And another way of saying that is that when you have the conditions that are listed here on the left things like legal or jurisdictional opportunities or the promise of reward in adequate security. You're not just going to get one type of maritime crime you end up with the likelihood of multiple forms of maritime crime proliferating because they share those underlying those underlying drivers and factors. But another way of looking at this is that sometimes of maritime crime are so large and so significant that they themselves create follow on forms of insecurity and again piracy here is a good example. The execution of piracy can itself create other forms. I'm sorry the pursuit of maritime terrorism in this case can fall can create other implications and other forms of maritime crime. And so I've borrowed this taxonomy from a stable sees report which I think is does a really great job of laying this out but you know the most prominent example of maritime terrorism is the actual attack at sea but there are numerous ways that are more criminal than terroristic in nature that maritime terrorist groups may pursue their activities in the maritime space so for example, they may engage in piracy in order to fund terrorism. They may engage in illicit trafficking in order to move people or goods or weapons or bulk cash in the pursuit of their aims. They may engage in extortion rackets in order again for terror financing. So these are ways where some acts of maritime crime can can directly in and of themselves create other forms of maritime insecurity. The way of thinking about this is in the concept of the ad hocracy, which is that maritime networks in particular are very well suited for adaptation to other forms of criminal activity, and there are a number of spaces where we see this in action for example, and he's been mentioned the Mediterranean migrant crisis, and one and this this graphic is from a report from from the Rand Corporation, which highlights the networks that were engaged in forging documents and smuggling individuals from the Mediterranean across the Mediterranean into Southern Europe were often themselves also engaged in things like drug trafficking or small arms trafficking right so these groups create to some extent, their own self reinforcing feedback loops as they diversified because they are ultimately businesses that are seeking both to maximize profit, and frankly to reduce risk and in the same way you reduce risk in your retirement portfolio by diversifying your investments, criminal networks that are fundamentally selling to move goods at sea, typically diversify in the types of assets and products that they sell and so again in the Caribbean we see mixed trafficking network so organizations that may originally have been small scale and moving marijuana are co opted occasionally to move cocaine, and then once you're capable of moving narcotics at that scale you're often then involved in bulk cash smuggling gun smuggling and human trafficking and in fact we saw the reverse of this in the rise of Mexican cartels as leaders in the Caribbean drug trade that many of them actually began not smuggling narcotics but smuggling people across the US border, right so so these these networks should be fundamentally understood as capable of moving anything and they adapt in ad hoc ways as the opportunities present present themselves. Again similar examples in the Gulf of Guinea, and in the Gulf of Aden in the Western Indian Ocean. In terms of what that means for sea services. Well, I mentioned at the top that we can break this down into both operational risks and strategic considerations from an operational standpoint, groups that are capable of sustained and significant political in the maritime arena are not necessarily hugely common relevant relative to the scale of something like terrorism or a surgeon see more broadly, but they do arise globally right so you can see here that we've got examples from from the Middle States all the way to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific and Latin America. Now that means that those groups are often fairly sophisticated. They're also fairly innovative, and they, they present genuine threats to operating forces globally. These are examples in two cases of non state groups, leveraging technology allegedly provided from Iran, shooting any ship cruise missiles at actual naval vessels INS honey the Israeli vessel in 2006, and then again in critically one one reason I want to point this out and I think this goes to one of the points raised earlier about why are we why are we so interested in this issue if there's pressing issues related to great power competition at play. Well, to the best of my knowledge, the only time a US Navy vessel has ever employed countermeasures like the evolved sea sparrow missile in self defense in a real world situation was when the USS Mason was fighting off barrage of any ship cruise fired from the Houthis and the Gulf of Aden right so so that's where a real sort of, you know, threat presents itself from a day to day level and then there are other other examples. Houthis innovating with unmanned attacks against Saudi assets in 2017 2018 and then from more of a criminal standpoint some significant strides in semi submersibles the top image you can see here was the interdiction of the first known ship that was possible to cross the Atlantic and was interdicted off the coast of Spain. And then there are the strategic implications right so from a US standpoint the question of how do we balance competition and maritime security right and part of that is the question of the relationship of day to day operations which often do on low end maritime and security issues to this broader idea that US strategy is now pivoted towards great powers there's there's a tension there that the sea services are trying to resolve an advantage at sea the latest try service maritime strategy is an example to that and we can find some rising and falling in terms of the attention to maritime security issues right so terrorism has started to fall from a focus area but illegal fishing has started to rise so there are these questions about what taxonomy and typology do we use in US strategy to think clearly about how these maritime insecurity and human security issues matter. And then from an alliance management and a partner management priority there are all sorts of ways of thinking about this so there's a north south divide for NATO right south southern NATO countries are much more concerned about human security and maritime and security issues than perhaps their northern counterparts, the US faces this more broadly. And then we have these serious questions about what's the point of capacity building exercises right I mean, originally the idea from behind the US is engagement and capacity building in the United States and the United Nations regional security, but it more and more we hear that really it's about countering the efforts of China and Russia and US is going to need to pick a narrative about what its intention is there. And this is my final slide just a summary piece here is a reminder about the pull of the present and that I think a lot of people on this call or I'm kind of preaching to the choir about the significance of maritime security and maritime criminal issues to the larger countries, but one message that I always try and impart on this is that it's not the point here is not that non state actors change history on their own right, typically what we need to pay attention to is that it's state responses to non state actors that really matter. And what I find most disconcerting is that often we're not thinking about maritime crime and the risk there is that inevitably the US or its allies or partners will face a maritime criminal criminal issue of such a scale that they'll respond and they won't have thought strategically about how to do so and what their equities are right and so part of this is an insurance policy against overreaction to an issue that is endemic and will exist in perpetuity regardless of the status of stuff like great power competition. And with that I will yield the floor and look forward to hearing the conversation. Thank you very much, Dr. Tal is very kind of you for your presentation very complete and very informative. Next, I will introduce our final speakers. Dr. Kelan Bourne joined the treated and tobacco Coast Guard in 2002. And subsequently, she trained at the Britannia Royal Naval College, BRNC in Dharma, becoming the first female officer to have completed the Royal Navy. She is a young officer's course. Additionally, she received the admiralty binoculars in 2005 for her outstanding performance at the BRNC. Kelan has served in numerous Coast Guard vessels and have had two commands at sea. In her last command Lieutenant Commander Bourne was the first female commanding officer onboard the standard patrol class TTS, Carly Bay, which made her maiden voyage from Holland to Trinidad and Tobago in December 2016. She has also served as in many short assignments before joining the NSC class of 2022 at the US Naval War College last July. Lieutenant Commander Kelan Bourne was the Trinidad and Tobago military aviation officer for the joint interagency task force South. Kelan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in management studies, first class owners, as well as a master of science in operation and maritime management. Ladies and gentlemen, Lieutenant Commander Kelan Bourne. Good morning sir. Thank you so much for the introductions. Good morning all. It is my esteem pleasure to be a member of this panel and I look forward to all people this course after. I'll just wait a while till my presentation loads, and it has loaded. Next slide please. This is my agenda today as outlined. My intent is to inform of all operations and concepts, as well as policy and forth options and we as a Coast Guard are looking at and actively engaged in doing. Next slide please. I'm trying to be with the Twin Island Republic, or territorial waters are measured at 12 multiple miles from the nearest point of archipelagic baseline, and with specific economic its own extensive 200 multiple miles. The deviations existing with our closest neighbors, Venezuela, Grenada, Saint Vincent and Grenadine, and Barbados. Next slide please. We are also the Southern MRCC, or maritime regional coordinating Center for the Caribbean with 60,500 square knots of a mass area of responsibility, which is shown by the area encompassed by the yellow hash lines. Next slide please. Other concepts employed within our area responsibility include our coastal surveillance through a maritime radar which provides trillions of degree coverage around the island. This is also augmented by overflights by a trinidad illegal air guard. The sea control in which the freedom of legitimate use of a maritime environment in specified areas for specified period of time are limited the use of maneuvering tactics to disrupt illicit activities by providing a consistent presence or conducting activities. Sea denial, which is again a limited form of sea control and our kind of economy of effort where our areas of responsibility are divided into sectors for efficiency of operation. That will deploy its assets using strategies that increase flexibility and makes best use of assets organic capabilities. Routine patrols will continue to be employed. However, in the event of an additional requirement for increased coverage, even in multiple sectors, additional assets can be employed. In this way, the requisite effects can be brought away in a given situation through rapid and intelligent force generation. Trantabago strategic location acts as a transshipment point for the movement of illicit drugs, such as cocaine and marijuana from South America to further up North Island to anti Europe, or ecstasy and other designer drugs from Europe up the island trip, heading west towards the United States. One of our primary roles includes counter drug operations which are ably supported by our existing cadre of highly trained personnel, a robust fleet of assets that provides access and capabilities within the littoral to the offshore environment. This illicit trade has seen an evolution of go fast vessels, transiting at high speeds to the slow moving fishing vessels mimicking on local traffic to avoid evasion, though the former is still existing today. Trantabago being the most southernly Caribbean island has created a niche for itself by providing a haven for the yachting community from hurricanes and other natural disasters, as well as providing cheap repairs. This has created opportunities for drug traffickers to utilize sailing vessels as part of their strategy. Other tactics employed include ship to ship transfers outside or tkw's falsifying vessel documents, disabling and manipulating of us movements of large some of us currently for exchange, the use of legal arms and ammunition to protect the shipments physically altering the vessel's identification, and as well as creating hidden compartment spaces. In the global COVID-19 pandemic, we've observed smaller shipments and the use of legal migrant migrants and before vessels to further conceal the shipments. Moreover, we have also witnessed the outsourcing of criminality, where persons from Trantabago are hired to transport drugs of the island by different drug trafficking organizations or tkw's having limited knowledge of any other aspect of the business. This slide shows our annual narcotic seizures from 2016 to 2020. What is very apparent is though the global pandemic may have slowed the details operations, they have consistently remained flexible and resilient in the operation. Next slide please. Trantabago is a signatory of the conservation several conventions, including the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuners, ICATS, and agreements such as the agreement on port state measures to prevent the two and eliminate illegal unreported and unregulated fishing, PSME. The commissions have observed this is the trade by both foreign and local flag vessels conducting activities to include the involvement in the drug trade, on permitted fishing within our easy on permitted fishing of particular species on the high seas, where the vessel would have been granted permission from their stock state, but have either exceeded their quota, or they're clearly targeting another species which is not simply as a result of their bycatch. They're fishing off their AIS, especially for vessels more than 300 gross funds, which is the fullest requirement, and they've also delayed in reporting at valid waterfalls. Trantabago Fisheries Division, and by extension the Coast Guard has continued to maintain key partnerships with key agencies, such as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, the joint India Agency Task Force SALT, Caricom Impacts, and the Barbados Coast Guard. These partnerships are essential not only because of the connectivity of our oceans, but because IU Fishing provides a gift with other innocent transnational clients. Next slide please. We have been dealing with humans smuggling and trafficking for quite some time. However, with the downfall of the Venezuelan economy, and the rise of the COVID-19 cases in our country, or border security patrols has drastically increased. The smugglers or traffickers have well established routes, and they have developed quite distinct local networks, which has made eradicating this trade extremely difficult. This illicit trade has proven quite lucrative for the operators, and it carries at least harsh penalties than the traditional drug trade. With the influx of these migrants, our detention centre was established at our teleport base for these persons to be quarantined and then detained. From May 2020 to present, we have housed approximately 872 illegal migrants, with the youngest being a three-month-old baby. We remain thankful for ongoing support that we receive from our international partners, inclusive of the US, which have continued to assist in your keep of the centre. Next slide please. The insatiable demand for wildlife in Trinidad Diego has encouraged a thriving trade between the Twin Island Republic and the neighbouring island of Venezuela. But the crippling economic crisis in Venezuela, more of its citizens and the details are lowered to its profitable illegal trade for its minimal effort and fixed turnover. The animals are smuggled over in pirogs from the South American country to Trinidad for sale either as pets or for local consumption at expensive or exotic dishes. The animals frequently trans-trafficed into Trinidad includes parrots, macaws, monkeys, iguanas, just to name a few. One such in-demand item is a bullfinch bird, which is a highly prized competitive bird singing skill. Locally this bird costs thousands of dollars, but once it's trafficked from Venezuela, there's a starting force of roughly five hundred Trinidad Diego dollars, which is equivalent to 75 US dollars per bird by the dozen on the black market. Moreover, as the Venezuelan crisis unfolded, they have been exacerbation of illicit smuggling of copper and brass, but this trend has lessened today with greater awareness of their possible origin. Next slide please. We continue to highlight the gaps in our existing legislation, which allows criminals to evade capture, and we work with our legislative arms of government to strengthen our legal instruments. The government has also devised a mechanism of strategic fulfillment that prioritizes critical skills for a fleet and minimizes downtime. But it is important to remember that no man is an island, nor that every country have the resources it requires to achieve its mission. Hence, their plans are put to further leverage the strengths of our existing regional and international partnerships through bilateral and multilateral initiatives with the regional security system, RSS, Malcolm impacts, and Jaika South. We are also working on increasing our maritime domain awareness through digital transformation and effective use of technology, ISR capabilities, Intel sharing MMOs, and hopefully approaches for a kilo of fixed wing capability. Next slide please. DTOs evolve, changing threats and the global COVID-19 pandemic dictates the continuously dynamic and rethink our existing strategy. We must enhance our civil military relationships with our local partners, which include the police, customs, immigration, maritime authority, fisheries, and European Association to improve our overall efficiency. With the criminal gangs having a greater presence in our local community, we need to employ the use of information operation, which shapes the battle space for all benefits. Our existing capabilities is limited, and this requires a more pointed approach in terms of how we deploy our aid assets. Next slide please. In closing, the Trinidad de O Coastal remains committed to counteracting illicit activity within our areas of responsibility, which have an inundating effect on our local communities, leading to increased socioeconomic challenges, increased crime, and instability. I will try to read the words of Thomas Jefferson, evil chums when good men do nothing. Thank you very much for the pleasure of writing my brief. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Commander Kellan Moore. Thank you to all of the speakers for their very insightful presentation. At this point I invite all the speakers to go camera and mic on for our question and answer period. All participants in the conference, if you have already done so, you can start posting your questions in the chat box now. So let's start. I have a question already for each one of you. So let me start with Ms. Bjun. You have two questions. The first one is, in your last slide, in your last slide you were talking about criminal justice. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that? Yeah, thank you very much. And I didn't have a chance to elaborate much on the need for a criminal justice response. And I know that the main topic here today focuses on the maritime law enforcement response. But from the GMCP's perspective, we would want to see a legal finish to the crimes we're tackling. So in doing so, it's a key that all the criminal justice chains are properly enforced. So in that regard, we're talking about the specific maritime law enforcement response at sea and that that's properly done and then handed over to the land response, which often goes to police investigators and prosecutors. This requires proper evidence collection at sea, ensuring that the evidence collected is admissible in court, working closely with prosecutors in that regard. One focus we have is to train law enforcement and prosecutors together so prosecutors can tell maritime law enforcement what they are they need in order to have a good case in court. That also looks at the proper handover from sea to land and thorough court proceedings as well as we include the prison component in ensuring human rights compliant prison conditions. This all require a proper cross agency coordination, as well as proper maritime security strategies, and good maritime domain awareness in order to reach to that overall target of a legal finish to the crimes we're looking at. As well as a regional cooperation because it one thing is to have the cross agency at the national level of operation but it's also key that the coordination and cooperation and sharing of information, which means regional states because we're talking about trust national and that's also included. I think that's a response. Thank you and probably going a little bit more into the actual practical application. Would you elaborate a little bit more on the timing security cooperation between land focus and land organized multi lateral institutions like the African Union, Asian etc. That they should usually they don't work together. What could be the strategies a United Nations to make them to work more closely together. So our programming in most regions fall under existing my 10 security frameworks as established by regional organizations, taking the example of African Union we make sure to support the aims 2050, as well as implementation of the charter so we reached out to new in that regard, but I would like to use the example of working in the Gulf of Guinea, where we have existing my time strategies under echo us and echos and in support of the ICC we ensure that which coastal states or regional states broader, as well as land works together in implementing these strategies and in support of the existing framework, and we're working with regional organizations, the same applies for Southeast Asia and falling under like all programming falls under that existing framework again, as you said, except for her soul. Thank you very much. This is question is for Dr. Tally's the US combat and commands are organized around land masses. And this means maritime human security problems are occurring on the geographical margins. For example, the Mediterranean smuggling map show areas that are concerning to African sent com and you come. How are these commands cooperating around maritime missions. Are they doing enough. How could they do better. Thank you for the question. Thank you to to Curtis for that one as well. It's, it's problematic right I think the observation is correct. Not only that the US is geographic combat and commands are not built around the maritime domain, they're also explicitly built around really state based threats right I mean, but the less mature of the US is a geographic based combat and commands. The youngest of which is US african, I think underscores the fact that that historically these these commands were were built with an eye towards state based threats originally Soviet Union and now principally geared towards towards China and Russia. You know, sort of two ways to answer that question. The first is that to some extent, there are ways around this that are also related to the maritime domains inherent flexibility right and so one answer to that is that US Navy fleets necessarily only line up with the geographic combat command line so where I'm sitting now in in Naples is the headquarters of the US six fleet, which extends between both the European theaters waters and most of the African theaters waters. I would totally solve the problem because fleets are operational arms and staff will still answer to two different bosses when it comes to either Africa command or European command. You know, in theory at least the fleet level provides an opportunity for the US Navy to be a little bit more dynamic in the way it thinks about geography as compared to those living at the geographic combat and command level. And then the second point I'd make there is that it doesn't have to be this way. There's an excellent new book out by my colleague Steve wills called strategy shelves, which chronicles the rise, among other things, of the modern version of the geographic combat command and the loss of the US Navy sort of historic viewpoint of looking at the sea as a broader maneuver space. It's a relatively modern transition right this is this is this has happened sort of late Cold War into the modern into the modern moment. And there's a lot of agitation, I think happening right now, thinking about whether or not the, the UCP the unified command plan lines really harness the, the sort of the inherent flexibility and capability of the US Navy so, you know, other ways to sort of question but in you know it was it was offered from an organizational format and so I'd say that, you know, yeah there there should be some creativity thought about whether or not the current structure that the US employees fully leverages the flexibility and the new variability of US Navy. I have one for commander lieutenant commander board. Do you have in traditional authorities over foreign vessels outside your territorial waters. If so, what are your processes. Thank you very much. Limited in that we do not have an existing bilateral agreements with island states to facilitate boarding and introduction of their flags, however, what we do have in an excellent relationship with our partners and our counterparts in the neighboring and the equivalent in the diplomatic channels, which facilitates a quick response to our dynamic environment. Moreover, if more time permits, and we have a more targeted intelligence driven operation. We would tend to embark a us closer to that team on border assets, which has frequently happened in the past. They did not only bring their communication sweet and their access to US intelligence, but also a host of legal supports given that they have a number of bilateral agreements with a number of people in the islands. Thank you so much. This is for everyone. The treatment of materials and equipment subject to sanctions on the high seas and territorial seas have been used to avoid sanctions. That would be an effective way to avoid it. We would like to jump first city. I can use some of the experience and examples we have in the supporting member states in trying to disrupt. Great. That's false understanding regimes and we see some challenges with regard to actual work on the enforcement side. What one key area is that these resolutions need to be very detailed and clear on what the different actors are looking at. And we want to see it from different angles. So it's key to work with both. We should talk about commodities that are in principle legal but then turning into illegal commodity because of false understanding regimes then what are the patterns and trends and having the research and studies as part of awareness raising. And then what exactly are they looking at. So it's very concrete what we expect of law enforcement, border control agencies, as well as exporters, importers, and the shipping industry as well as flag states. And one other component that's important there is the use of vessel registries and how awareness racing and sharing of information can be done between the partners and alerting that certain ships has been involved in sanction breach, how different different flag states can then inform other flag states of these. So those are some of the ideas in order to strengthen the sanction regimes. Thank you very much anyone else. I would just like to add from the enforcement side, I think these issues are always going to come up because the high seas is that that gray area where nobody really has an authority unless you're the flag state or aligned with that particular ship. So, for something like that to have a much way to be able to have an effect on that kind of listed trade, we need to be able to start from a partnership standpoint within the region. We need to be able to come with all partnership, not just with the, not just with between military, but also civil military, in terms of the respective maritime administration as you would have mentioned, that is critical we need to be able to partner with these organizations so that they have an understanding not that that this space is being utilized for illicit activity. And only through that, I think we can be able to overcome some or reduce some of these, these threats. Thank you very much. I have another question for the three of you. We can see clearly the intersection between insecurity and crime at sea. And how this is affecting the life and security of many people around the world in coastal areas and even inside the country because as Dr. Talis was mentioning things to start at sea. I mean they start in land they go to sea and then they finish it again in land. I mean, I think Navy's are so reluctant to talk about this, because they see this kind of matters as distraction to their mission. I can give that a shot first. Well, I would say, you know, it's some navies right I mean, many, many navies and many coast guards and this gets into a separate discussion about the actual structure composition and authorities of various navies and coast guards many countries and those, you know, so there are some there are some fine grain distinctions there. Many of them are focused on these maritime criminal issues because they are fundamentally existential to, to, to, you know, the either national sovereignty or national economies right many, many countries either coastal or small island developing states or our pelagic nations, fundamentally rely on the blue economy or tourism. That's also related to the blue economy. That maritime criminal activities really fundamentally threatened so there's a separate category I think the questioner is getting to a larger navies that don't particularly see this and I think some of it is because there is a first order obligation to defend national sovereignty and the larger your country or the larger your navy and the larger the possibility that one of your existential threats is actual major great power conflict right so there's there is a first order obligation in order to be prepared for those contingencies, but a lot of it comes down to to the national myth right I mean in the United States. The Navy has historically talked about its legacy with respect to major conflicts by the fact that the US Navy has an equally storied legacy with respect to countering maritime crime. There's an excellent book by a naval academy professor, BJ Armstrong called small boats and daring men maritime grading irregular warfare and the early American Navy, where he talks about this history. But it's just, it's not a part of the, the story that US Navy tells about itself so some of this is really just, you know, doing a better job teaching, you know, our incoming cadets and mid shipment. They have their own naval forces and the significance of these maritime criminal issues to the very foundation of why they exist. Well, what a nice great participation and the answering of your, the question has been fantastic. Unfortunately, we run out of time. Welcome back to Andrea. Thank you so much, Commander Cameron. You have been very kind. We had a lot of answers is still going there. I can see in the faces of the participants but the time was running out. Thank you so much to the panel has been wonderful. I have been already working with you today. Thank you so much. Hello, Guillermo Barrera, Siri, June. Josh Talis and Kellan born. This is a wonderful panel about criminal activities in the maritime environment and what navies and coast guards are doing. Most impressive was how our speakers are connecting their themes, particularly to more traditionally viewed security issues and the to broader competition. As we go into our second break, please join us again at 1120 as we start our third panel of the day with Commander Michelle shall have an illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Thank you for joining us.