Russian and Finnish police cooperate across the borders
Russia and Finland have signed an agreement on cooperation between the police departments in Murmansk and Rovaniemi.
According to the agreement for the period 2010-2013, the police forces on both sides of the Russian-Finnish border are going to cooperate on fighting economic crime, corruption and smuggling of weapons, drugs and historic artifacts, The Russian Ministry of Interiors write on its web pages.
The agreement with Finland also covers fight against criminality on the Internet and human trafficking.
As similar agreement between the police in Murmansk and Eastern Finnmark, Norway, was signed in December 2009.
- We have very good relations to law enforcement organs in all the Scandinavian countries, says Deputy Chief of Police in Murmansk Oblast Police Colonel Sergey Mashkov. - We have been cooperating with Finnish police for nearly ten years.
According to Mashkov, Finnish citizens are involved in very few crimes in Russia’s northern regions, and when they are, it is mostly as victims of theft. In course of the last three months no crimes involving Finns have been registered in Murmansk Oblast.
