Hungary's Police High Commissioner Dr Jozsef Bencze meets with Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol's Executive Director of Police Services.

Dr Bencze wants to link Hungary's border crossings to Interpol's database of stolen and lost travel documents.

Dr Bencze and Dr Péter Kovari, head of the National Central Bureau in Budapest, are briefed on Interpol's tools and services for fighting international crime.

A guided tour of Interpol's 24-7 Command and Co-ordination Centre.

Dr Bencze said he saw a great opportunity to boost Hungary’s internal security by expanding access to INTERPOL’s global database of stolen and lost travel documents to the country’s international airport and 36 border crossings after the integration of the border police into the national police in January 2008.

'After this process, access to INTERPOL’s database at these points of entry will greatly improve our tasks related to migration and border checks,' said Dr Bencze, who was appointed police commissioner in June 2007.

'With 129 countries submitting records to the database, conducting checks against it will make the border-control process much more effective and enhance our security. At the same time, we will also move to raise the quality and quantity of records we submit to this database.'

Hungary, as a member of the European Union, works closely with the bloc’s law enforcement and border control bodies, Europol and Frontex, as well as the Southeast European Co-operative Initiative.

On the international level, Dr Bencze said closer involvement with INTERPOL was vital to countering the increasing globalisation of criminality, highlighting a recent case in which five individuals wanted for fraud offences were arrested in foreign countries and extradited to Hungary on the basis of INTERPOL international wanted persons notices, called Red Notices, and European Arrest Warrants.

Operating out of Budapest, the group, which included American, Austrian and German nationals, is alleged to have bilked €32 million from almost 1,000 victims all over the world who thought they were investing in legitimate American companies.

'We welcome Dr Bencze’s call for stronger ties with INTERPOL. W ithout the global co-operation of police services around the world via INTERPOL and without access to our global databases Hungarian citizens will remain vulnerable to the global crime threat,' said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

During their meeting, Secretary General Noble and Dr Bencze discussed other ways in which INTERPOL could help the country fight transnational crime, including the submission of DNA profiles of unknown suspects in murders and other violent crimes to INTERPOL’s DNA Gateway automated database, and the secondment of a Hungarian police officer to the General Secretariat.

Dr Bencze was accompanied by the head of the INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Budapest, Dr Peter Kovari.

Dr Bencze told Secretary General Noble he welcomed closer involvement with Interpol.