INTERPOL is at a crossroads amid rising global repression

The International Police Organisation, known as INTERPOL has seen a significant change in its leadership. At the General Assembly held in Glasgow in November 2024 a new Secretary General, Valdecy Urquiza, was elected to replace the long-serving Jürgen Stock who had run the organisation for over 10 years. Although Stock has left INTERPOL in a better place than he found it, fundamental problems still strike at the heart of international cooperation and political manoeuvring.

Stock has overseen INTERPOL during a time of unprecedented change in law enforcement. The rise of biometric identification and electronic borders combined with cheap air travel has meant that while individuals can travel the world easily, they can be tracked just as easily. This means that the use of INTERPOL to locate criminal suspects is becoming more important than ever. 

The problem is that alongside this is the rise of autocratic states using transnational repression to attack dissidents, political opponents, and often business rivals in foreign states. INTERPOL still has a Red Notice abuse problem as it is unable to stop the sustained abuse. 

In 2016, Stock instituted the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF) in an attempt to better analyse Red Notice requests from states with poor rule of law records – but the sheer volume and complexity of the task has meant that the problem still persists. 

Particular offenders include the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and many others. 

Alternative misuse of pressure

INTERPOL also faces broader challenges than just Red Notice abuse. As campaigners have highlighted the misuse of Red Notices, autocratic regimes have shifted to using other forms of pressure. Türkiye has turned to using the Stolen Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) system to target political opponents. 

Here, the passport is reported as lost or stolen. Consequentially, when the target crosses a border, their passport is listed as such, meaning they cannot enter. However, the crucial twist is that being a national of Türkiye means that often the only place a target can be sent to is Türkiye – where they face, torture, political persecution and detention in horrendous conditions.

Alternatively, Blue Notices –used to request assistance in evidence gathering, are also being used purportedly to find evidence against individuals. Yet Blue Notices can also end up freezing bank accounts and preventing travel as local law enforcement seeks to execute the Blue Notices without any defence or input from individuals. 

The New Secretary General also faces similar challenges to his processors regarding the use by autocratic regimes of their soft power. They use their membership of INTERPOL to burnish their adherence to the rule of law, when in reality, it is a fig leaf covering the naked ambition to use INTERPOL to repress opponents and dissenters. 

The recent election of the Executive Committee of INTERPOL has shown the failings of democratic nations to cooperate in law enforcement. The 13-member Executive Committee includes members from the People’s Republic of China and Türkiye, alongside incumbent INTERPOL President Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, an Emirati and Major general of the UAE’s interior Minister who remains under investigation in several states over allegations of complicity in torture. 

Also in November 2024, following the General Assembly, Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong visited Lyon, France, meeting with President Al-Raisi and Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza at the General Secretariat HQ. That involved the signing of a ‘Declaration of Intent’ to enhance collaboration within INTERPOL.

While that visit may be necessary within INTERPOL, including furthering its operational activities, the manipulation of the organisation’s activities and targeting its leaders should not go unnoticed. It is important to remember that the Chinese President of INTERPOL Meng Hongwei disappeared in 2018. He was held incommunicado for several weeks and then put on trial for corruption offences – he was sentenced to 13 years for bribery. At the same time, Chinese spies sought to kidnap his family in Lyon. His wife Grace Meng is still seeking justice. 

China’s sophisticated use of INTERPOL to hunt down dissidents as well as religious groups, including Uyghurs, is extraordinary and has attracted severe criticism among governments and human rights organisations. Many of the individuals who are persecuted are for ideological reasons. It has also involved seeking to target wealthy expats, such as Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba and Fan Bingbang the Hollywood actress, who both disappeared for significant periods of time for making comments deemed controversial and critical by the Chinese authorities. More recently, there was also the trial of human rights activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai and others in Hong Kong under the draconian national security law against criticising the Hong Kong Government.

The Chinese Government has a coordinated top-down plan, thinly veiled as anti-corruption in which it seeks to target individuals using transnational repression. In 2014, China launched “Operation Fox Hunt,” a wide-reaching ‘anti-corruption’ campaign targeting wealthy individuals who had left China and were living abroad. The avowed purpose of this campaign was to seize and recover the assets of its targets. Fox Hunt would later be subsumed into the larger and broader “Operation Sky Net” launched in March 2015, this was refreshed in 2023 with the “Skynet 2023” campaign. 

These operations were not intended to be genuine prosecutions or investigations. Instead, they were designed to target political opponents and those considered ideologically against the CCP. A recent study by Safeguard Defenders showed that the PRC “forcefully returned [citizens] to China from over 120 countries, mostly via ‘irregular methods.’ ‘Irregular methods’, include “coercion and harassment” and involuntary returns, including kidnappings, which accounted for 64 percent, and “make up the bulk of China’s tactics.” INTERPOL remains a key tool in transnational repression for China and it is difficult to see a way to stop them. 

The election of these autocratic states to the Executive Committee was far from surprising, given the spread of candidates nominated for election. The ultimate issue here lies in the lack of diplomatic coordination which resulted in two of INTERPOL’s most prolific abusers being elected to the Executive Committee. 

The need for reform

From a European perspective, if there had been greater co-operation from the democratic states to put forward fewer candidates, Türkiye might not have been elected. Instead, democratic nations find themselves falling behind as INTERPOL’s most frequent abusers climb the global ladder in an attempt to legitimise their global reputation and conceal both their political shortcomings and dismal human rights records. 

To counter the ongoing abuse of INTERPOL’s systems, reforms aimed at enhanced transparency should be implemented. These could include regular reporting on Red Notice reviews and rejections by country, the publication of aggregate data on politically motivated notices and greater visibility into decision-making processes. A major game-changer would be a substantial increase in CCF staffing and resources, ideally by transforming the CCF into a continuous operation instead of a few meetings annually. On a national level, especially in democratic member states, creating public ombudsman positions within National Central Bureaus (NCBs) to scrutinise Red Notices before they are enforced would effectively counter the ongoing abuse. 

Ultimately, Mr Urquiza faces a difficult balancing act: upholding the rule of law while not criticising the abuse of the system is not an easy task.