Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Monday urged the Romanian Police to act „with maximum seriousness and harshness in combating illicit drug trafficking,” saying that Romania is a safe country, with low crime rates compared to other Western states.

„I would also like to note that, with technological advances and democratisation of access to information, crime is evolving and diversifying. Romania is an open country, and that leaves it exposed to international criminal circuits. New challenges are emerging, which the Romanian Police must anticipate and combat. Police officers have to constantly adapt their methods and undergo training to combat the increasingly sophisticated means of the criminals. And I’ll give you a brief example here: illicit drug trafficking. For a long time, when our country had its borders closed, we were safe from that scourge. Subsequently, we became a transit country, and in recent years we have begun to become more and more a destination country for illicit drug trafficking. It is a relatively new situation, and the Police need to adapt and develop their capabilities to deal with this phenomenon. I am urging you to act with the utmost seriousness and harshness in combating illicit drug trafficking. Especially when minors are the traffickers’ target,” reads Ciolacu’s Romanian Police Day delivered by Alexandru – Mihai Ghigiu, head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, during an event hosted by the Military Hall in Bucharest.

The prime minister added that Romania is a safe country, with low crime rates compared to other Western states, where there are acts of violence in schools and in the streets resulting in victims, vandalism in shops or on the subway.

AGERPRES