Keo Vannthan (l), head of Cambodia’s Interpol Bureau at the Ministry of Interior, attends a joint Cambodian-Vietnamese meeting in Phnom Penh. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post

An ASEAN-first Interpol database tracking transnational crime between Cambodia and Vietnam was launched in Phnom Penh yesterday.

Keo Vannthan, head of Cambodia’s Interpol Bureau at the Ministry of Interior, said the European Union had pledged almost US$800,000 to the pilot EU-ASEAN Migration Border Management Program project between the two countries.

Khine Myas Chit, an ASEAN Secretariat official, said it would be a first in an ASEAN-wide roll-out of Interpol border projects.

“We hope for success in the two pilot countries, and will expand to other members of ASEAN,” Khine Myas Chit said.

Sok Phal, deputy-general of the General Commissariat of National Police at the Ministry of Interior, said Interpol network databases would assist in tracking crime, especially child sex abuse, travel document theft and human trafficking.

The project is operational not just along the Vietnamese border, but in international airports and western border checkpoints in Koh Kong and Poipet.

“We believe in the potential for Interpol databases to help us prevent terrorist incidents and serious crimes, and I strongly believe it will reduce the use of illegal travelling documents and the movement of criminal suspects in the region and the world,” Sok Phal said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vong Sokheng at [email protected]