In 2016, Mexican police captured Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo,
following an escape from prison.
As head of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels,
he had been subject to an Interpol Red Notice,
an alert sent to police units across the globe
to track down the world’s most wanted criminals.
These are the most serious rapists, murderers, child sex offenders,
fraud and drugs cases.
These are effectively like an advance bulletin board
where different police forces can post notices saying,
“We would like you to arrest this person
and hopefully extradite them to return to our country to face trial.”
However, in recent years, a disturbing trend has emerged.
There’s been an increase in issuances of these Red Notices
by authoritarian regimes, specifically to persecute and punish
and hurt human rights activists and dissidents abroad,
who are not in any way, shape or form
engaged in anything dangerous or unlawful.
So how did a system meant to help bring fugitives to justice
end up also becoming a weapon for strongmen to abuse human rights?
Being on the Interpol Red Notice list
is a totally life-changing and devastating sanction.
Effectively, you can’t travel.
And any international border you cross, you’ll be arrested.
This is the story of Interpol’s system error.
[System Error]
Back in 2007, a group of armed robbers drove two cars
through the glass windows of a shopping mall in Dubai
and stole $3.4 million worth of jewels.
They were part of a criminal network known as the Pink Panthers
that raided high-end jewelry stores between 1999 and 2015.
They operated in over a dozen countries
and are estimated to have made out with
half a billion dollars’ worth of gold and diamonds.
In part thanks to an Interpol Red Notice,
Serbian Borco Ilincic was arrested in Spain
and sentenced to ten years in prison in Dubai.
Interpol is the world’s police cooperation organization
with police forces from 194 countries being its members.
Its main goal is to facilitate cooperation,
to fight transnational crime, and to cooperate on issues of crime
and national security.
A lot of people who are subject to prejudices
are indeed very dangerous people
or potentially very dangerous people.
You just need to look at the Interpol website
and you’ll see that there are serial killers,
people who are wanted for international crimes, for example.
The search is on for a terror mastermind,
and the search is so urgent, they call it a Red Notice.
From Osama bin Laden and Joseph Kony
to the great train robber Ronnie Biggs
and serial killer Charles Sobhraj,
Red Notices have been issued
to track down the world’s most notorious terrorists, murderers,
online hackers, and thieves,
and were designed to prevent them from evading justice
by crossing country borders.
Red Notice is the primary bulletin through which
Interpol pursues individuals who are accused of different crimes.
It’s a request to arrest someone
who is wanted for a crime in another member state of Interpol.
In 1998, for example,
there were 733 of these Red Notices issued.
That number has climbed to 67,000 Red Notices,
of which only some 7,000 are public.
They are essentially a series of “Most Wanted” posters,
and although Interpol has no power to arrest individuals,
they do get to decide which notices are validated
and disseminated across the globe.
They’ve got a team of
maybe 30 to 40 people in the organization
whose responsibility is to check Red Notice requests
to make sure they are valid,
not politically motivated, for example,
and that they are not in violation of human rights.
However, the current checks and balances weren't always in place.
That is the World Trade Center,
and we have unconfirmed reports this morning
that
Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda,
but it does not end there.
It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach
has been found, stopped, and defeated.
The World Trade Center attacks sparked a global war on terror
that increased the need for cooperation
between different national police services around the world.
In response, the head of Interpol at the time,
Ronald Noble, helped digitize the Red Notice system,
making it quicker and easier for countries to flag criminals
to other members.
I believe intelligence gathering and intelligence sharing
and then acting in a coordinated fashion is the future.
Soon after 9/11, with the click of a button,
Red Notices could be uploaded to Interpol’s database
and sent around the world.
The number of Red Notices began growing exponentially,
increasing by 40 percent in 2004.
The war on terror has had a tremendous impact on
not only the exercise of transnational repression,
but also on the use of Interpol by authoritarian regimes.
I think those are factors that might be driving
the increase in the abuse of Red Notices.
Authoritarian regimes can basically upload huge batches of
tens of thousands of names into the Interpol database
and apply for Red Notices for these persons all at once.
And we see evidence that they're doing so in increasing numbers.
In 2012, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
discovered more than 2,000 Red Notices
had been issued by countries with restrictive human rights.
Examples included Dolkun Isa,
an Uyghur dissident that China sought to extradite
using a Red Notice which Interpol has since canceled,
or Manuel Rosales,
a politician that lost to Hugo Chavez in the 2006 presidential elections,
who was also scrubbed from the Interpol website.
With other examples from China, Pakistan,
Tunisia, Bahrain, and Russia,
Interpol recognized there was a problem
and stepped up its vetting process of Red Notices.
In 2015, it introduced a policy which prevented notices
being issued against individuals with a recognized refugee status.
And a year later, it created a task force
to review government submissions,
ensuring they adhere to Interpol’s constitution
and the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights.
However, despite these reforms,
cases are still falling through the cracks.
I am Australian, not Bahrain.
Please stop them.
In 2019, Hakeem al-Araibi,
a Bahraini refugee and professional football player,
was arrested on arrival in Thailand
following a Red Notice filed by Bahrain to Interpol,
accusing him with vandalism,
allegations he denies.
He had fled his home country back in 2014
after claims he was imprisoned and beaten
during a crackdown on pro-democracy athletes.
Pressure is mounting on the government
to release a football player
who is being held on an extradition request from Bahrain.
Human rights observers feared he would face torture if extradited.
Following a media outcry,
Bahrain backed down, and his Red Notice was lifted,
and he was released.
Other countries continue issuing Red Notices
to target political dissidents and activists.
In recent years, Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has used,
or I should say, abused the procedures of Interpol.
In the years leading up to 2005,
Bill Browder had uncovered massive corruption and theft
linked to oligarchs and Russian officials
and was put in Putin's crosshairs as a result.
Russia attempted to issue multiple Red Notices
and Diffusions for his arrest,
exposing how autocratic governments attempt to abuse the system.
And over the course of the next five years,
Russia has issued eight Interpol arrest warrants for me.
Although Interpol rejected all these requests,
Spanish authorities continued to act on one Diffusion
before being notified of its cancellation.
That's what happened in Madrid.
I got arrested because they got sent the notice
and they were just acting as any good police officer would,
which is thinking that they were catching a fugitive.
Instead, they were unwittingly acting as an extraterritorial arm
of Putin’s evil regime.
Browder was quickly released after Interpol told Spanish authorities
not to honor the request.
Another example is Nikita Chenkov,
a staff member of Putin's biggest political opponent, Alexei Navalny.
We spoke to his chief of staff, who recollected his arrest.
Cyprus arrested him and
was about to extradite him to Russia.
It took us enormous effort
to get him back to Lithuania.
So this, of course, made us very,
well, aware of the risks.
This system only has sense
when all the parties respect its rules,
and unfortunately, regimes like
Russian, Turkish or Chinese
are very good in learning how to misuse
and abuse these rules in their favor.
As Interpol attempts to stamp out the abuse of Red Notices,
its lack of transparency remains a major hurdle.
The organization does not provide data on
how many Red Notices requests have violated their constitution,
making it impossible to know the extent of the problem.
At the moment, there’s no means to say,
“Turkey has tried to abuse Interpol for its political gains,
for the regime's power against civilians,
against human rights activists,
and therefore there should be some sanctions or remuneration for that.”
The thing to bear in mind is that this is a policing organization.
So it’s an organization that’s run for and by police officers.
So if that helps to explain what the culture is,
it’s an organization that’s, for the most part, shrouded in mystery.
It’s very difficult to get information.
What kind of processes and methods are employed
in order to do the things that they’re doing?
The abuse of Interpol is just the tip of the iceberg
in the ways that authoritarian regimes are exerting control
and surveillance and repression over diaspora communities,
over exiles and expatriates.
Authoritarianism is growing in the world.
Democracy is in decline.
This has been well-documented.
Interpol can play a key role in both good and bad
in global governance today.
[When asked for comment, INTERPOL responded:]
[“It is important to make clear that the review of the task force]
[can only be based on the information available]
[at the time of publication.]
[Whenever new and relevant information]
[is brought to INTERPOL’s attention, the case is re-examined.“]
[“INTERPOL welcomes any information]
[that may impact the continued compliance of a Notice or Diffusion.]
[Indeed, all member countries are expected to share any information]
[that may facilitate the review of Notices and Diffusions.“]
[“INTERPOL Notices and Diffusions are vital tools for global safety,]
[which is why we are constantly reviewing, assessing,]
[and updating our procedures]
[to ensure the greatest level of integrity in the system]
[and trust in our work.“]