site.btaDeputy Prosecutor General Pavlova Takes Part in Meeting of Permanent Conference of Organized Crime Prosecutors

Deputy Prosecutor General Maria Pavlova took part in a meeting of the Executive Board of the Permanent Conference of Organized Crime Prosecutors (PCOCP) in Sofia on Thursday. The meeting is on until Friday, the prosecution service said.

As of September 2022, the chairmanship of the PCOCP Secretariat was assumed by the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office, represented by Deputy Appellate Prosecutor Galya Marinova and Irina Armenova of the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office. Within the forum, Marinova will present the results from the work of the PCOCP Secretariat in the last eight months.

Addressing the forum, Pavlova said that focus on the problems of organized crime is particularly important when the public attention is entirely turned towards foreign policy. "Left without public attention and systematic counter-measures, organized crime does not stop to grow. Drug smuggling, cyber crime, excise fraud, smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, the growing transnational character of terrorism pose ever greater challenges to human rights bodies in European countries," she argued.

Pavlova stressed that achieving notable results in investigating, uncovering, and stopping crime networks is possible only with large-scale efforts focused on building a functioning system for communication and interaction.

Participating in the meeting are magistrates from Greece, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and other countries. They discussed the need of stronger cooperation in implementing international legal aid requests in the context of every participating country's national legislation. They also commented on the growing risks of cyber threats, terrorist attacks and overcoming the challenges posed by illegal migration.

Within the forum, a declaration was signed whereby Austria officially joined the PCOCP.

The PCOCP was established in 2016 through an initiative supported by the OSCE Mission to Serbia. Its members currently include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.