Budapest International Law Enforcement Academy Turns Ten
The Budapest International Law Enforcement Academy Turns Ten
And Why It’s More Vital Than Ever
05/13/05
It’s housed in the former barracks of the Royal Hungarian mounted police, deep in the heart of historic Budapest. Chances are, you’ve never heard of it. But for the past decade, it has helped make your communities safer and our world more secure.
It’s the International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest, Hungary—a global training ground for police executives and criminal justice leaders from across Eastern Europe and much of Asia that’s run by the FBI and the Hungarian government with the help of many partner nations and agencies.
On 5/12, Director Mueller joined government ministers and agency heads, national chiefs of police, and diplomatic officials from 26 nations in celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Budapest ILEA. We’ve just posted his remarks at the anniversary ceremony and his comments later that day at a Ministerial Summit.
In both speeches, the Director made it clear why we value ILEA—and the thousands of international colleagues who have trained there—more than ever: because it builds important bridges in an age where crime and terrorism freely cross borders, a time when, he says, terrorists can “plan in Europe, finance their operations in North America, train in the Middle East, and carry out attacks anywhere in the world.”
A few ways ILEA has made a difference to this nation and many others:
- By building partnerships that pay off down the road when cases need to be solved across borders. Like the relationships forged at ILEA between the U.S. and Hungary that helped lead to the arrest in South Florida of Andras Lakatos, the so-called “banker to the Hungarian underworld.”
- By promoting the “growth of stable governments that respect the rule of law” through an intensive eight-week program that teaches ethics, leadership, how to fight public corruption, and more.
- By creating law enforcement leaders who “bring their knowledge and expertise back to their home countries, raising the caliber of every law enforcement agency” and lifting the overall professionalism of the global law enforcement community.
Here’s to another decade of building “good bridges” at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest!
Links: ILEA website | FBI Training website