Last week, over 60 police specialists on missing persons from 16 countries attended the second edition of the European Police Expert Network on Missing Children Forum in Prague. The goal of the three-day expert meeting, which was organised by the Czech Police and AMBER Alert Europe, was for law enforcement experts to meet their colleagues in order to exchange best practices, strengthen police cooperation across borders and learn new techniques to save more missing children in Europe.

“Every endangered missing child deserves an equal chance to be found as quickly as possible, this must not be inhibited by them crossing borders,” says Frank Hoen, Chairman and Founder of AMBER Alert Europe. “Because of the Police Expert Network, police specialists know exactly who to call at 3 AM in the morning when a child goes missing and they need support from colleagues in another country. This will highly contribute to saving more missing children, which of course is our ultimate goal.”

Real-life missing person cases and latest techniques
During the event, real-life missing person cases were introduced by the national police of the Czech Republic, Poland, Canada, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK. Additionally, special guests Peter de Scheemaeker, Product Manager of Europol’s EU Most Wanted Website, Razvan Budeanu, Senior Coordinating Offi­cer at Frontex, and Richard Prajsler, Managing Director at Inpublic Group attended the event to present the latest developments and techniques in finding missing children.

Slovenia announced as new Police Expert Network president
To close the forum, Damjan Miklic, Senior Criminal Police Inspector of the Slovenian Police, was announced as the new president of the Police Expert Network. The Police Expert Network,  which currently consists of over 50 law enforcement experts in the field of missing children from 19 European countries, is the only law enforcement group on missing persons in Europe. Miklic succeeds Colonel Jan Rybár, Head of the Missing Persons Unit of the Czech Police Presidium.


Colonel Jan Rybár, Head of the Missing Persons Unit of the Czech Police Presidium (l) and Damjan Miklic, Senior Criminal Police Inspector of the Slovenian Police  (r)