Background
SEACOP is a European Commission initiative piloted in Ghana, Senegal, and Cape Verde. It was established to prevent the trans-Atlantic cocaine flow to the European Union and to support West African countries along the Atlantic Ocean in countering cocaine and narcotic threats and other serious transnational organised crimes.
These crimes include explosives and firearms trafficking, trafficking in persons, and trafficking of nuclear materials through containers, commercial vessels, pleasure crafts, go-fast launchers, pirogues, yachts, coasters, freighters, and fishing boats.
The SEACOP concept in Sierra Leone
In 2013, the European Union and the Government of Sierra Leone held discussions on the establishment of the SEACOP programme in Sierra Leone. On 23 September 2013, a five-day training was provided by EU SEACOP experts at the Sierra Leone Police Training School, Hastings, for thirteen team members drawn from the Sierra Leone Ports Authority, Sierra Leone Police Maritime, National Revenue Authority, Immigration Department, RSLAF Maritime Wing, CISU, and the ONS as coordinating body.
A new team has since been constituted and broadened to include representatives from ONS, CISU, RSLAF, NDLEA, Immigration, IIS, SLPA, NRA, SLMA, and TOCU. Heads of the participating institutions were informed officially, nominated their personnel, and discussed SEACOP issues at the TOCU Advisory Board level.
The training equipped members with skills to search suspicious vessels and containers, while the EU SEACOP team pledged to provide equipment and necessary working gear for operations.
To enhance operational effectiveness, the SEACOP team is housed at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay following the refurbishment of two forty-foot containers. Personnel from the various TOCU agencies have been deployed at the quay and operations are in full gear.
Prior to and after the signing of an MOU between FIIAPP/SEACOP and the Government of Sierra Leone in 2017, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the UK Border Force donated working gear and ICT equipment. These items were installed at the SEACOP refurbished container at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay.
As the coordinating agency, the ONS undertook the cost of refurbishing the containers that were donated to the SEACOP team by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.