Joint Investigation Teams - JIT - in the MERCOSUR

Abstract

The process of subregional integration in South America, overcame serveral policial, social and economic crisis, along the 29 years since the signing of the agreement for the establishment of the MERCOSUR and its basic institutional structure - the Treaty of Asunción -, among the Republic of Argentina, the Federative Republic of Brazil, and the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. Nonetheless, the major challanges as a block, constitute the rapid rise and advance of the organized, complex, and transnational crime, worsened by the permeability of the land borders. Towards this problem, it emerges the need for setting new strategies for effective fight against this type of crime -without disparaging the positive advance that has already taken place in the legislative alignment and good practices in international legal/criminal assistance-. There is thus a need for implementing articulated mechanisms for criminal prosecution, such as the Joint Investigation Teams, that represent a tool of international cooperation in criminal matters -very underrated o less used in the region-, helpful for the investigation and prosecution of complex types of crime such as: drug trafficking, corruption, terrorism, money laundering, human trafficking and other crimes. The JIT are also very helpful for tracking, recovering and sharing of assets of these criminal organizations, which will cause economic impact on them in order to disrupt these criminal organizations.