Interpol and Red Notices: Background information when reading Red Notice

Interpol and Red Notices

This article relates to Red Notice

The title Red Notice refers to one of the many alerts issued by Interpol, the world's largest international police organization.

The idea of an international police force was originally proposed at the First International Criminal Police Congress in Monaco in 1914, although the organization didn't come into being until an initiative was passed in 1923 at the International Criminal Police Congress in Vienna. Formed as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) headquartered in Vienna, it fell under Nazi Germany's control in 1938 and was moved to Berlin in 1942. After World War II, ICPC was reformed as Interpol under the auspices of Belgium, and it was granted official status by the United Nations in 1949. (The name "Interpol," often written INTERPOL, is a concatenation of "International" and "Police.")

Interpol is currently comprised of 190 member countries. Based in Lyon, France, it also has seven regional offices (Buenos Aires, Argentina; San Salvador, El Salvador; Yaoundé, Cameroon; Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire; Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Bangkok, Thailand), and each of the member countries has a National Central Bureau (NCB). Its annual budget is 78 million euros (approximately U.S. $88 million), which is primarily composed of contributions by member countries.

The organization's goal is to facilitate cooperation between countries' law enforcement officers, including where no diplomatic relations exist. Because of its international nature it functions as an administrative liaison, able to navigate language, law and procedural differences that may arise between two countries' police forces. In addition, Interpol provides training, investigative support and crime trend analyses to its member countries. Its officers cannot make arrests, and work as an informational network only, and Interpol's constitution prohibits "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character."

An Interpol notice is "an international request for cooperation, or an alert allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information." A country's law enforcement officials issue a request to their NCB, which in turn requests that the General Secretariat issue the notice.

Interpol issues several different types of notices:

• Red: To seek the location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action
• Blue: To collect additional information about a person's identity, location or activities in relation to a crime
• Green: To provide warnings and intelligence about persons who have committed criminal offences and are likely to repeat these crimes in other countries
• Yellow: To help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify persons who are unable to identify themselves
• Black: To seek information on unidentified bodies
• Orange: To warn of an event, a person, an object or a process representing a serious and imminent threat to public safety
• Purple: To seek or provide information on modus operandi, objects, devices and concealment methods used by criminals
• INTERPOL-United Nations Security Council Special Notice: Issued for groups and individuals who are the targets of U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committees.

Interpol issued 13,637 notices in 2013, of which 8,857 were Red Notices.

Graphic of red notice from 9 Bedford Row International

Filed under Society and Politics

This "beyond the book article" relates to Red Notice. It originally ran in February 2015 and has been updated for the October 2015 paperback edition. Go to magazine.