Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked ministries, departments, and localities to intensify national and international cooperation in the fight against crime, especially trans-national, hi-tech crime and crime with foreign elements involved.

The Deputy PM made the statement at the National Steering Committee for Crime Combat and Prevention’s a teleconference in Hanoi on April 15 to look back its operation in the first quarter of 2013 and work out plans for the second quarter.

Phuc, who heads the Committee, praised the productive participation of all ministries, sectors, the Vietnam’s Fatherland Front, and people in combating and preventing crime, but warned of a tendency of crime re-rising up in a more complex manner.

He said control and preventive activities need to be reinforced as a core, regular task of local Party Committees and authorities, and raids on criminals must be continued with the involvement of people and local self-defence forces in the coming months.

The Committee reported that in the first quarter, more than 14,000 criminal cases were uncovered, up 4.83 percent from the previous quarter. Of which, nearly 4,000 cases related to heroin trafficking, with over 7,000 involved people arrested and 98 kilograms of heroin and 600 kilograms of marijuana seized, and 50 cases are engaged in human trafficking, with 131 people arrested.-VNA