The Integrated Fight Against Organised Crime in the Baltic Sea Region (BALTCOM) - Genesis, the Main Fields of Activity and Prospects for Development

Since the establishment of the Task Force many operations involving countries in the region have been performed. A multidisciplinary approach was introduced in terms of the operations in order to better utilise financial and personnel resources as well as to improve results of operations. Usually operations have provided useful information (for example on modus operandi). A few of the operations have been conducted specifically with the objective of gathering information – operation General Aviation is one example of this. Operation Early Bird, a bilateral operation between Poland and Germany, was a direct result of the information from operation General Aviation. The Task Force has the potential of making the operations unpredictable to the criminals as far as time, location and geographical area are concerned. However over the years it has not become clear if the Task-Force cooperation is valuable and efficient. In the beginning the mere fact of being able to carry out joint operations in the region, i.e. all countries doing the same thing at the same time, was a very good and important result in itself. The expectations and demands adressed to the co-operation have increased, and now external evaluations is needed. The presented issue is extremely complex due to the specific nature of the activities carried out on BALTCOM platform and its unique position in the international system of cooperation. Article draws the attention to possible benefits from such forms of international cooperation in combating crime.