Australian and Thai police and investigation authorities are forming a joint task force to combat crime syndicates and drug trafficking in South East Asia.
Task force Storm follows a similar agreement between the Australian Federal Police and Chinese drug suppression and trafficking authorities reached last year.
AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin on Monday will sign agreements in Bangkok together with the Thai Minister for Justice, General Paiboon Koomchaya, and secretary general of the Narcotics Control Board (NCB), Narong Rattanannugul, an NCB spokesperson said.
A joint agency agreement will establish the task force covering narcotics and transnational crime, bringing together the AFP with Thailand's NCB, the Anti-Money Laundering Officer, the Justice Ministry's Department of Special Investigation and the Royal Thai Police.
The task force is in line with the China agreement, known as Task Force Blaze, set up in Guangzhou in November last year, where the AFP may conduct several operations across a range of transnational crimes.
The agreement in China linked the AFP with the Chinese National Narcotics Control Commission, China's anti-smuggling bureau and the Guangdong Public Security Bureau.
Thailand has long been a prime source of opiates into Australia, especially heroin, produced in the Golden Triangle region, largely in Myanmar over several decades.
Australia has also had longstanding co-operation agreements with the Thai Narcotics Control Board.
But in recent years Australia has faced a growing wave of trafficking of new psychoactive substances, and amphetamine type stimulants especially crystal methamphetamine or "ice".
This pattern of smuggling also mirrors the trend in China, with Australia seen by crime syndicates as a "high yield market".
Security analysts said the joint task force would enable operations across a "whole range of transnational crimes".
Other key concerns, say AFP in official documents, include human trafficking.
The AFP documents, presented at recent international crime conferences, have also raised the growing threat to Australia from terrorism.
AFP officials have called for cooperation with regional partners to ensure that the "necessary international frameworks are in place" to detect those seeking to join terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State (IS).
Security analysts have raised fears that young Australians, being recruited by IS, may be using Thailand as a stopover before travelling to the Middle East to train with IS on forged passports produced in Asia.
The potential terrorists are then able to return to Australia on their Australian passports.
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