This is a true story.
A British man was wanted in connection with a gangland murder that happened in London
in 2007.
This man didn’t hang around in the UK for long and just disappeared.
He became one of Britain’s most wanted men.
This guy, unbeknownst to police, travelled to South East Asia.
He spent a number of years in the country of Laos living under a new identity.
He later moved to Northern Thailand where he carried on with his life, got a job, made
new friends, although he never told anyone his real name.
Five years after the murder, when the man was 29, he was arrested while working.
The game was up, and along with the Thai police, it was Interpol that got him.
Let’s now tell you a bit about this organization.
The full name of Interpol is actually the “International Criminal Police Organization”
and it calls itself an intergovernmental organization.
Currently there are 194 member countries.
In its own words, Interpol helps police “to make the world a safer place.”
How did it get started?
Well, back in the early 20th century police around the world made some attempts to work
together.
Criminals as you know tend to move around when prison is staring them in the face, and
crime anyway back then was becoming more international.
Such as what happened in Thailand, local cops at times might need help when looking for
foreign criminals.
The first iteration of Interpol was created in 1923 and then it was named the International
Criminal Police Commission.
The countries that signed up at first were Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, China,
Egypt, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland,
and Yugoslavia.
A few years later and the UK signed up but it wasn’t until 1938 that the USA got on
board.
Many countries took themselves out of Interpol when Nazi Germany took control of the organization,
but they later rejoined.
Interpol has a constitution and the first two clauses of that are:
One.
“To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police
authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in
the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Two.
“To establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention
and suppression of ordinary law crimes.”
The areas in which Interpol works come under three main kinds of crime.
Those are terrorism, cybercrime, and organized crime.
That gangland murder we talked about would be organized crime.
These are the main areas, but Interpol will also track down criminals who might have been
involved in white collar crime, or drug trafficking, or even copyright infringement, or more.
The web is large.
Interpol of course has a massive database and many people work in the organization.
All this has to be paid for, and each member country will chip in.
The yearly budget is said to be $127 million.
The General Secretariat, which has its offices in Lyon, France, is staffed by over 700 people.
These folks, comprising of police officers and general civilians, do most of the day-to-day
stuff.
They are the main workforce.
But then in each member country there is a National Central Bureau, and it is there that
people will work alongside the General Secretariat when criminals are being hunted.
There is also a General Assembly, which is a kind of governing body.
On its own website Interpol writes that it has a system of communications that all countries
use and this is called “I-24/7”.
This is a massive database that everyone can use.
The FBI for instance might be after a person and somehow he ends up in Germany.
It’s not as if German cops and American cops share all their information so this international
database is helpful.
If the FBI has a tip off that an American criminal might be in Germany it can contact
German Interpol.
Interpol cannot arrest anyone, but it can do work that will lead towards an arrest.
Let’s say someone has committed a crime and gone on the run.
In that case Interpol might issue something called a “Notice”.
That’s basically a “be on the lookout for” a certain person.
It might also be a missing person.
It could be about an unidentified body that had been found or perhaps some folks that
have managed to escape from prison.
In the case of the gang member we talked about at the start of the show, when he left the
UK Interpol would have put out a Red Notice.
In his case he was hard to find because he got a new name and passport and decided to
keep his head down in rural Laos.
It was when he got a job that lights started flashing.
All those notices are color-coded depending on what they mean.
The most common notice by a long way is a Red Notice.
This is how that is defined: “To seek the location/arrest of a person
wanted by a judicial jurisdiction or an international tribunal with a view to his/her extradition.”
On its website Interpol is quick to point out, “A Red Notice is an international wanted
persons notice, but it is not an arrest warrant.”
Blues are also popular and they are defined as:
“To locate, identify or obtain information on a person of interest in a criminal investigation.”
There are a lot of greens, too, and they are described like this:
“To warn about a person's criminal activities if that person is considered to be a possible
threat to public safety.”
So, let’s now have a look at some of these real-life notices.
Interpol said the public often helps with tracking people down so you can actually go
on its website and see who has been given a red notice.
There are thousands of red notices right now.
We found a guy from Georgia named Nikifore Kutaladze.
He is wanted for aggravated murder and aggravated kidnapping.
There is a photo of him and a short description.
You never know, perhaps if you looked at him you might find he’s the quiet guy that just
moved in down the street.
We found a girl who is just 18.
She is from Russia and her name is Leyla Gatagazheva.
It’s said that she is part of a terrorist organization.
We also found an American guy.
His name is Eugene Palmer and he’s wanted for second degree murder.
If you think you have seen someone who has been given a notice you can contact Interpol
or the local police where you live.
Interpol also has a number of people marked with a yellow notice.
This is sad to see because it’s the missing people list and many of those people are young
kids.
There are also a lot of missing adults that Interpol is looking for.
You can use the Interpol site to look at stolen works of art, but to do that you must sign
up for an account and we didn’t want to go that far.
There are over 50,000 stolen items in that database.
Then there are the controversies.
For instance, what if one country calls you a criminal and puts out a notice but other
countries don’t agree?
We might take the example of an American-born British financier named Bill Browder.
Russia has declared this man a threat to national security, but attempts to have him arrested
after issuing a Red Notice have so far not worked because Interpol has said it’s a
matter of politics, not crime.
In 2019, a story in Reuters began like this, “Russia has asked Interpol for the seventh
time to arrest Bill Browder, a London-based Kremlin critic who leads a campaign to punish
Russian officials for the 2009 death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.”
Browder has accused Russian officials of human rights abuses and corruption, and Russia has
accused Browder of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.
Browder has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using Interpol to have him arrested
when he says he has done nothing wrong and is unfairly being hunted by corrupt officials.
Browder said the investigation against him is a sham, and he has also accused Russian
officials of poisoning his associates.
From what we can see, despite Russia’s attempts, Interpol will not allow Browder’s name on
the wanted list.
In 2019, though, reports suggested that Interpol might change its mind, which some critics
said will put the organization’s integrity at risk.
This is not the first controversy, and some activists have accused Interpol of allowing
corrupt or oppressive governments to hunt for people worldwide using those notices.
One human rights NGO wrote, “Interpol has been allowing itself to be used by oppressive
regimes across the world to export the persecution of human rights defenders, journalists and
political opponents.”
So this is the grey area.
Let’s say someone has criticized what some people might call an oppressive regime and
that regime is part of the Interpol organization.
That activist might be accused of a crime against a government, but many others might
not see it that way.
A well known case of this happening was when a former Bahraini soccer player was arrested.
Again, it was in Thailand.
What had he done?
Well, it turns out that this man, named Hakeem Al-Araibi, was wanted by the Bahrain government
and they put out a red notice on him.
According to Fair Trials, it’s not always easy to see if there is a notice against you
so some activists might get the surprise of their lives at airports around the world.
The Fair Trials website explains how someone could go about finding out if there is a notice
against them.
This Bahraini guy accused the government and authorities in his country of torturing and
abusing other football players who had supported an uprising against the government.
He was then charged with a crime of vandalism.
This is how he said the authorities treated him, “They spent three hours hitting me
hard on my legs, while saying we will break your bones, we will destroy your future, you
will never play football again with these legs.”
This man then fled the country and went to Iran, then Malaysia, over to Thailand and
then to Australia.
That’s where he stayed, but later he decided to take a holiday to Thailand and that’s
when Thai authorities arrested him as he was under red notice.
Bahrain wanted him extradited and to face the music over there, and while he spent a
couple of months in a Thai jail, he was eventually sent back to Australia.
Activists have written that the case of Hakeem Al-Araibi is by no means an isolated incident.
We found quite a few cases of refugees fleeing countries and governments they had criticized
and then were given red notices.
Interpol has tried to make the situation better and added some reforms to its refugee policy,
but it seems in the case of Al-Araibi Interpol didn’t remove the red notice quickly enough
and the man ended up in jail and not exactly getting the holiday he wanted.
It seems Interpol doesn’t always get the information it needs regarding refugees, so
sometimes the red notices stay.
The Conversation writes, “Al-Araibi’s case highlights the life-threatening consequences
that can result from the misuse of cooperative mechanisms like red notices.”
The upshot though was Interpol’s secretary-general stating that from now on notices will be reviewed
much more rigorously.
For the most part, though, Interpol does a good job in tracking down some very bad people.
It’s only when things get political that the organization has been criticized.
By the way, you are now likely thinking that working for Interpol could be quite an interesting
job.
We are always happy to help you at the Infographics Show, so we’ll just tell you now how you
might get on board with the organisation.
There are lots of things you can do for them, and if you go to their website right now you’ll
see what vacancies they have.
Not all require that you have worked in law enforcement, far from it.
You’ll then need to create an account on their website, which is easy enough.
You’ll likely have to give them information such as your passport number or national ID
number.
Then just submit your application along with your resume.
You should know that to get into this organization you’ll have to go through background checks.
The good thing is that anyone over 18 can apply and as Interpol covers so many nations
we imagine most of you people listening can work for them.
A lot of positions will require that you have a university degree, but not all.
What’s your plan if a country suddenly puts a notice out for you?
Tell us in the comments.
Then for more information on secretive investigation agencies go watch “FBI vs CIA - How Do They
Compare?“
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.