Building on the success of the 2022 tabletop exercise, the Bali Process Working Group on Disruption of Criminal Networks organized an expanded, multi-day event that brought together all Bali Process Working Groups. This enhanced exercise engaged a broader audience, enabling participation from a wider range of stakeholders across the region and fostering deeper regional cooperation.
Objectives
- Strengthen Understanding of National and Regional Responses: improve participating states’ comprehension of both individual and coordinated responses to irregular migration scenarios involving trafficked and smuggled persons.
- Promote Regional Cooperation and Coordination: facilitate enhanced collaboration among Bali Process member countries and relevant international organizations, enabling more cohesive and timely responses.
- Identify Gaps and Challenges: examine existing response mechanisms to identify challenges, gaps, and areas for improvement, while exploring practical strategies to address these issues.
- Enhance Inter-Working Group Collaboration: foster cooperation among all Bali Process Working Groups, leveraging cross-functional expertise to address complex migration and criminal network scenarios.
The event featured several days of interactive scenario-based activities designed to simulate a mixed migration event by land and sea, including:
- People Smuggling by Sea: Participants addressed operational challenges, detection, and interdiction strategies.
- Trafficking in Persons Across Land Borders: States and agencies coordinated to identify and disrupt trafficking networks.
- Organised Criminal Hubs: The scenario simulated the movement of victims into centralised criminal networks, requiring multi-agency response and intelligence sharing.
By involving the expertise of all Working Groups, the exercise provided a comprehensive capacity-building experience across member states and participating organizations, reinforcing regional preparedness and strengthening collective response capabilities
