The CARICOM Community’s (CARICOM) Advanced Passenger Information System is working extremely well. 

Word of this has come from Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs and Development, Mia Amor Mottley, who was speaking last evening at the Barbados Customs Brokers and Clerks Association and the Caribbean Association of Customs Brokers Third Biennial Conference at the Savannah Hotel.  

“Many people may not be aware that everyday since the middle of February there has been a CARICOM Centre here in Barbados, a subsidiary of the Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) that takes all the data of every passenger coming into the region on commercial private airlines, commercial cruise ships and boats and those names are vetted against established Interpol databases.”  Once they are on the CARICOM watch list,  they can then be processed, she noted.

Pointing out that the system “has been working well for the region”, Minister Mottley observed “this is undoubtedly a significant legacy from the hosting of Cricket World Cup”.

The Deputy Prime Minister also revealed that the region was lauded for its effectiveness in implementing such a system. “We have received the assistance of Interpol in particular and we were able to do so in circumstances, such that the Secretary General of Interpol, the week after Cricket World Cup had finished, was able to present himself with evidence before the Congressional Judicial Subcommittee in the United States Congress and was able to indicate that the Caribbean “became the first region in the world to effect real time vetting of persons across its borders”. 

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