INTERPOL National iARMS Training Course for Sierra Leone
On 22-25 October 2018, INTERPOL organized a National iARMS Training Course for Sierra Leone’s law enforcement agencies. The course was conducted by the INTERPOL Firearms Programme and INTERPOL Regional Bureau for West Africa. 25 officials representing Sierra Leone Police Service, National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons and National Security Services attended the course. The objectives of this course were to train law enforcement officers on the use of the iARMS database and to promote the use and benefits of INTERPOL Firearms Programme Policing Capabilities (iARMS, IFRT and IBIN) in the fight against the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. The training was aimed at encouraging Sierra Leone to start uploading all lost and stolen firearms records into iARMS as well as to trace all recovered firearms.
Funded by the European Union, the INTERPOL Illicit Arms Records and tracing Management System (iARMS) is a platform that facilitates information exchange and investigative cooperation between law enforcement agencies in relation to the international movement of illicit firearms. Countries are encouraged to upload records of lost and stolen firearms in iARMS. Consequently, in the case of a recovered firearm, the database is queried and the country can identify when and where the firearm was diverted into illegal possession.
Shall the query not generate a positive result, the user can send a request to the country of manufacture, country of last legal import (if marked on the firearm) and to any country that may be connected to the case.
