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Interpol, the global organization for police cooperation and crime control, is being misused by repressive states as a “powerful weapon” to target political opponents, according to reports.
Published this week, the Interpol Files investigation by the French media outlet Disclose in partnership with the BBC examined a leak of thousands of internal documents from the global law enforcement body.
Disclose detailed how some of Interpol’s 196 member states have been abusing Red Notices, which are requests for international authorities to arrest an individual. Rather than pursuing legitimate criminals, some countries have been using Red Notices to target critics, including political opponents and journalists.
OCCRP reported last year on an attempt by Kyrgyzstan to capture journalist Rinat Tuhvatshin via a Red Notice. Tuhvatshin is a co-founder of Kloop, an award-winning media outlet that is part of OCCRP’s global network. Interpol rejected Kyrgyzstan’s application for the Red Notice.
Disclose and BBC both highlighted Russia as one of the main countries misusing Red Notices to target critics abroad.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Interpol announced that “heightened supervision and monitoring measures in relation to Russia have now been implemented.”
Questioned about the Disclose and BBC reports, an Interpol spokesperson told OCCRP that the organization "has a number of systems in place to avoid misuse of our systems."
“Interpol knows Red Notices are powerful tools for law enforcement cooperation and is fully aware of their potential impact on the individuals concerned," said the spokesperson, Rachael Billington.
According to data from September 2024 published by Disclose, Russia had issued the most Red Notices — at 4,817 — of any member state. The leaked internal data suggest that a large number of them do not meet Interpol’s standards, Disclose reported.
Kyrgyzstan, which attempted to use Interpol to pursue Tuhvatshin, was 25th on the list of countries with the most Red Notices, having issued 917.
