ICE provides Colombian authorities specialized dive training
CARTAGENA, Colombia — Fourteen Colombian law enforcement officials completed a weeklong counternarcotic training in an unconventional classroom – underwater. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) provided the training to the officials representing the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Police.
Special agents with the HSI Miami dive team provided the training, the first of its kind in Colombia. The training focused on techniques to help law enforcement identify contraband concealed in the hulls of cargo ships and in parasitic devices. The students were also taught evidence and cadaver recovery.
A graduation marking the end of the training was held Friday in Cartagena, Colombia. Major General Ricardo Restrepo Londono, director of the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Police; Captain Juan Jimenez, Navy admiral for the Caribbean; and senior HSI officials participated in the graduation.
“As drug traffickers evolve, we too must evolve,” said Cartagena Assistant Attaché Fernando Plascencia. “We are committed to working with our partners in Colombia to stem the drug trafficking trade, even if it takes us underwater.”
Through its International Operations, HSI has 65 operational attaché offices in 46 countries around the world. HSI special agents work closely with foreign law enforcement agencies through a robust network of specialized, vetted units known as Transnational Criminal Investigative Units. Additionally, HSI brings personnel from host countries to the United States to train at the Department of Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia.
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