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On Wednesday, a top United Nations official delivering remarks at a judicial cooperation workshop in Barbados issued a clear call for Caribbean states to deepen cross-border judicial partnerships with European counterparts, framing this collaboration as an indispensable step to breaking up well-resourced, sophisticated transnational criminal networks that operate across regional borders.

Speaking at the Hotel Indigo in Hastings at the workshop focused on Caribbean-European Union judicial cooperation through EUROJUST Focal Points, Stephanie Ziebell, Deputy Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) covering Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, emphasized that modern transnational criminal threats have completely outgrown national border barriers. Organized criminal operations, illicit financial activity, cyber-facilitated offenses, and other cross-border criminal ventures increasingly demand coordinated, collective action from nations across regions, she explained.

“In this interconnected landscape, international judicial cooperation is no longer a niche, specialized function within national justice systems,” Ziebell noted. “It has evolved into a core, essential component of every effective modern criminal justice framework.” She added that seamless cross-jurisdictional communication, rapid information sharing, and aligned operational coordination are non-negotiable for disrupting criminal groups that deliberately leverage border divisions to avoid prosecution.

Ziebell tied the push for stronger cooperation to broader governance and public safety initiatives the UNDP has been leading across the Caribbean region, referencing a recent joint diagnostic study completed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and UNDP that evaluates regional strategies for addressing crime, violence, community resilience, and human security. Launched just last month by CARICOM Chairman and Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis Dr. Terrance Drew, the study reached a key conclusion: fragmented, country-only responses to transnational crime consistently fail to deliver results, and coordinated, integrated regional and international approaches are urgently needed.

Ziebell went on to highlight the unique value of the European Union’s judicial cooperation body EUROJUST as a strategic tool for Caribbean jurisdictions seeking to counter transnational crime. While longstanding mechanisms including mutual legal assistance treaties, formal extradition arrangements, and direct police-to-police partnerships still hold important roles, she explained that EUROJUST offers a purpose-built platform focused specifically on streamlining judicial and prosecutorial collaboration across borders.

“It gives national authorities direct access to specialized expertise, established coordination frameworks, and on-the-ground practical support that helps them navigate the increasingly complex legal and procedural hurdles that arise when criminal investigations and prosecutions span multiple countries,” Ziebell said. The advantages of this partnership become particularly clear when cases involve critical evidence, illicitly gained assets, suspects, or witnesses based within the European Union, she added: EUROJUST simplifies connections between relevant national authorities, facilitates formal cooperation processes, resolves conflicting jurisdictional claims, and helps stakeholders identify the most efficient legal pathways to advance investigations and secure prosecutions.

“By strengthening these cross-border connections, nations put themselves in a far stronger position to take on complex transnational cases, recover criminal assets, secure critical evidence, and ensure that national borders do not become a barrier to delivering justice,” Ziebell stated. She also underscored the critical role of EUROJUST Focal Points, describing them as vital connectors that bridge gaps between national judicial authorities and international cooperation infrastructure.

The three-day workshop itself was designed to help attendees from across the region build a stronger working knowledge of available international cooperation tools, expand professional networks across jurisdictions, and share hands-on practical experience related to cross-border judicial collaboration. Ziebell emphasized that in today’s deeply interconnected global landscape, effective judicial cooperation delivers far broader benefits than just improved public safety and stronger rule of law: it also lays the groundwork for the regional stability, regulatory predictability, and public trust that underpin long-term sustainable development, legitimate economic growth, and lasting shared prosperity.

Krystal Delaney, Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions for Barbados, echoed Ziebell’s assessment, stressing that for small island nations like her own, cross-border cooperation is not optional but a necessity. “Barbados is a very small country, but that does not mean we’re isolated from transnational threats,” Delaney explained. “Transnational organized crime including drug trafficking, small arms smuggling, money laundering, and cybercrime directly impact our country, and strain the capacity of our domestic institutions in ways that no single office or single jurisdiction can address alone.”

She added: “The reality is that no jurisdiction, no matter how well-resourced it may be, can successfully investigate and prosecute transnational crime on its own. There is undeniable strength in collective action. Our coordinated, joint response allows us to share critical information, align investigation activities, deliver mutual legal assistance, and build trust as partners. That core goal is exactly what this workshop is all about.”

A powerful 7.1-magnitude seismic event rattled the offshore region near Venezuela’s coastline Wednesday evening, triggering an official advisory from Caribbean meteorological authorities. According to the Barbados Meteorological Services (BMS), the strong tremor does not pose a tsunami hazard to Barbados, and no significant adverse impacts are expected for the island nation.

Geological data places the earthquake’s timing at approximately 6:05 p.m. local time, with its epicenter sitting roughly 10 kilometers below the ocean floor. In its formal Green-level information statement released after the quake, BMS emphasized that the seismic event carries little to no potential to generate a destructive tsunami. The agency has explicitly ruled out the need for emergency evacuation orders across Barbados.

As regional authorities continue to assess cross-border geological impacts, BMS is urging Barbadian residents and visitors to maintain awareness by following future official updates issued through its public communication channels. No immediate reports of damage or casualties have been linked to the quake in Barbados, as monitoring operations remain ongoing.

The Caribbean region has cemented its role as the primary transit route for cocaine and other contraband bound for European markets, pushing the European Union to urgently push for deeper cross-border judicial collaboration to break up transnational criminal networks that are exploiting the area’s unique geographic and logistical advantages. That warning came from Fiona Ramsey, the European Union’s ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States, who spoke Wednesday at the opening of a judicial cooperation workshop co-hosted by the Caribbean region and EU through the EUROJUST Focal Points initiative, held at Barbados’ Hotel Indigo.

In her address to a gathering of regional and international legal specialists, Ramsey laid out how organised criminal syndicates have turned the Caribbean’s well-developed maritime and aviation infrastructure into a major asset for their expanding trafficking operations and other cross-border illegal activities. While these extensive transport links are a foundational driver of legitimate commerce and economic growth across the Caribbean, Ramsey emphasized that criminal groups have quickly co-opted these same advantages for illicit activity.

“The Caribbean is now the key corridor for cocaine and other illicit goods entering into the European Union, and the consequences of inaction for both the Caribbean and Europe are severe,” Ramsey said. She detailed the far-reaching harms of unregulated illicit trafficking: it fuels endemic violence across the Caribbean, erodes the foundations of good governance, weakens public confidence in the rule of law, and creates space for a wider web of secondary criminal activity, including money laundering, public sector corruption, and environmental crime. Left unaddressed, the trade preys on marginalized vulnerable communities and locks regions into repeating cycles of insecurity that are hard to break.

Ramsey stressed that no single nation has the capacity to dismantle these sprawling transnational networks on its own, making targeted judicial cooperation through EUROJUST’s regional contact points an essential tool to counter the threat. Successfully disrupting trafficking requires ongoing, coordinated collaboration between countries, including real-time intelligence sharing and joint, end-to-end investigations that target every layer of criminal operations—from the movement of contraband to the laundering of illegal proceeds.

She noted that recent law enforcement crackdowns have already proven how adaptable criminal groups are, with traffickers quickly adjusting their routes and operations to evade new enforcement pressure. This flexibility underscores the need for a sustained, long-term, comprehensive response from judicial authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, rather than one-off interventions.

Beyond counter-trafficking work, Ramsey highlighted that maritime connectivity and security have become increasingly central pillars of the broader EU-Caribbean partnership. While deeper transport links promise to unlock major new economic opportunities for the region, they also create new, unmonitored pathways that criminal groups can exploit. To address this gap, the EU has already allocated dedicated funding to boost port security and expand judicial cooperation as part of its broader regional security strategy, with the goal of ensuring that drug seizures do not end at interception, but lead to successful prosecutions and criminal convictions that take network leaders off the street.

Ramsey also identified a fast-growing new challenge for cross-border law enforcement: the use of cryptocurrencies to launder criminal proceeds. “Cryptocurrencies have transformed illicit financial flows, creating new challenges for both regions,” she explained. Traffickers increasingly rely on pseudonymous transactions, privacy-enhancing technologies, and decentralized finance platforms to hide illegal profits and move funds across borders without detection, making asset recovery far more difficult for authorities.

To tackle this emerging threat, Ramsey called for expanded targeted collaboration between Caribbean and European law enforcement and judicial bodies. By combining Caribbean partners’ on-the-ground intelligence about trafficking network operations with European expertise in digital investigations, blockchain analysis, and cross-border asset recovery, the two regions can more effectively disrupt the financial foundations that allow organised crime to operate.