State AGs Hope To Discuss Trafficking, Interact With Cuban Legal Community
INDIANAPOLIS – As part of an ongoing multistate effort to combat human trafficking and drug trafficking, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller and several other of his state AG colleagues are traveling to Cuba this week to meet with their Cuban counterparts and interact with members of the Cuban legal community.
The cost of the three-day visit to Havana, Cuba, is being handled by the Alliance Partnership, and is not paid for with Indiana tax dollars.
“We are excited to be building this bridge to the Cuban legal community as our countries are normalizing relations. Despite the differences in our legal systems, we both face serious common problems like human and drug trafficking and other transnational crime. This face-to-face meeting is the first step in creating a robust bilateral relationship that will promote the rule of law and allow cross-border collaboration on issues of mutual importance,†Zoeller said.
The meetings in Havana, officially known as the Alliance Partnership Binational AG Exchange, are a follow-up to previous meetings that the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG) has organized between state AGs from the U.S. and their counterparts in Mexico and other Latin American nations.
In September 2010, Zoeller’s office hosted a CWAG Alliance Partnership training event in Indianapolis, attended by 70 prosecutors and investigators from Mexico that focused on Mexico’s rule of law.
In October 2015, Zoeller and a group of other state AGs from the U.S. attended a two-day CWAG Alliance Partnership conference in Mexico City and met with that nation’s criminal justice officials to discuss the problems of human trafficking, drug trafficking and Internet privacy.
During the upcoming conference in Havana, Zoeller and other AGs are scheduled to meet with Cuba’s attorney general, Dario Delgado Cura, where they hope to discuss issues of common concern involving the international illegal smuggling of people and drugs. The AGs are scheduled to visit the University of Havana Law School and meet with a non-governmental organization that provides continuing legal education, the National Union of Cuban Lawyers. They plan to meet with the National Organization of Law Offices, the government entity for which all Cuban trial lawyers work; and they will tour government buildings and historic landmarks. The state AGs departed through Miami on Sunday and are scheduled to return to the U.S. on Wednesday.
Zoeller has been involved for several years in multistate and binational efforts with other state AGs to combat human trafficking and urge Congress to secure the nation’s borders and enact and enforce U.S. immigration laws.  Zoeller said he hopes to continue to raise awareness of the law enforcement issues of trafficking and illegal immigration, and also encourage the advancement of the rule of law and legal education in other Latin American countries who interact with the U.S. and Indiana.
