The Parliament on Sunday approved for Maldives to join the South Asian Regional Intelligence and Coordination Centre (SARICC) on Transnational Organized Crime (TOC).
Earlier this month, Ministry of Home Affairs released a statement, revealing that the President's Office submitted the proposal to the Parliament after the Cabinet approved Maldives' collaboration with India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal.
An open vote was taken and out of the 77 parliamentarians present, 70 voted in favour of it.
SARICC is an initiative by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and will be established in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The centre will facilitate criminal intelligence collection and analysis, coordination of operational activities of the law enforcement agencies and act as a knowledge-sharing platform on strengthening security in South Asia.
The agreement would encourage bilateral cooperation concerning the implementation of international agreements on crime prevention in a manner that did not interfere with internal affairs.
Furthermore, the agreement asserted that member countries would only share intelligence as per their respective constitutions.
According to the Home Ministry, the centre would be a major force in preventing economic and social losses resulting from increasing crime rates.
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