Embassy Press Releases

FBI DONATION OF SIGNIFICANT COMPUTER NETWORK UPGRADES TO THE SECI CENTER IN BUCHAREST

December 19, 2006

Bucharest – United States Ambassador Nicholas Taubman announced today that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has donated significant computer network hardware and software upgrades to the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative Regional Center for Center for Combating Trans-border Organized Crime (SECI Center) in Bucharest, Romania. These upgrades provide the SECI Center an improvement in the speed and security of investigative data exchange, increased network availability, as well as secure and inexpensive Internet based voice and facsimile communications capability.

The value of this donation to the SECI Center is approximately $208,000.00 USD.

The SECI Center, located in the Romanian Parliament Building, brings together police and customs officials from twelve Balkan nations to coordinate investigative and enforcement actions targeting serious trans-border organized crime in Southeastern Europe. The United States has supported the SECI Center as a permanent observer nation since the Center’s opening in early 2001. In addition to the FBI, the United States is represented at the SECI Center by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United States Secret Service (USSS).

Concerning the computer network upgrade donation, U.S. Ambassador Taubman stated “the objective of the United States’ assistance to the SECI Center is to ensure the long-term and self-supported viability of SECI and the important law enforcement work done both at the SECI Center in Bucharest and in the various SECI member nations across the Balkan region. Fast and secure information exchange is vital to SECI’s success in combating organized crime in the Balkans. I am proud that the FBI and the other U.S. law enforcement agencies are partnered with SECI to guarantee its preeminent position in regional law enforcement coordination.”

For more information on SECI and a listing of SECI member and observer nations, please visit the SECI website at www.secicenter.org

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