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The 'International Criminal Police Organization', better known by its telegraphic address 'INTERPOL,' is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. It was established as the 'International Criminal Police Commission' in 1923 and adopted its telegraphic address as its name in 1956. It should not be confused with the International Police, which takes on an active uniformed role in policing war-torn countries.
INTERPOL is the world's fifth-largest international organization, after the Universal Postal Union, FIBA (the International Basketball Federation), the United Nations, and FIFA (soccer's international governing body). Its membership of 186 countries provides finance of around €41.7 million through annual contributions. (By comparison, Europol receives €63.4 million annually.) The organization's headquarters are in Lyon, France. Its current President and Secretary-General are, respectively, Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, and Ronald Noble, formerly of the United States Treasury. Noble is the first non-European to hold the position of Secretary-General.
In order to maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, INTERPOL's constitution forbids its involvement in crimes that do not overlap several member countries, or in any political, military, religious, or racial crimes. Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized crime, war crimes, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, trafficking in human beings, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, Intellectual Property crime and corruption.
In 2005, the INTERPOL General Secretariat employed a staff of 502, representing 78 member countries. Women comprised 42 percent of the staff. The Interpol public website received an average of 2.2 million page visits every month. Interpol's red notices (''"difusiones rojas"'') that year led to the arrests of 3,500 people.

Contents

History

Methodology

Member states and sub-bureaus

Non-member countries

Secretaries-general and presidents

INTERPOL in popular culture

Examples

See also

External links

History

INTERPOL was founded in Austria in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), with headquarters located in Vienna until 1942. Following the ''Anschluss'' (Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany) in 1938, the organization fell under the control of Nazi Germany and the Commission's headquarters were eventually moved to Berlin in 1942. It is unclear, however, if and to what extent the ICPC files were used to further the goals of the Nazi regime.
After the end of World War II in 1945, the organization was revived, as the International Criminal Police Organization, by European Allies of World War II officials from Belgium, France, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. Its new headquarters were established in Saint Cloud, a town on the outskirts of Paris. They remained there until 1989, when they were moved to their present location, Lyon.

Methodology

Each member country maintains a National Central Bureau (NCB) staffed by national law enforcement officers. The NCB is the designated contact point for the Interpol General Secretariat, regional bureaux and other member countries requiring assistance with overseas investigations and the location and apprehension of fugitives. This is especially important in countries which have many law-enforcement agencies: this central bureau is a unique point of contact for foreign entities, which may not understand the complexity of the law-enforcement system of the country they attempt to contact. For instance, the NCB for the United States of America is housed at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The NCB will then ensure the proper transmission of information to the correct agency.
INTERPOL maintains a large database charting unsolved crimes and both convicted and alleged criminals. At any time, a member nation has access to specific sections of the database and its police forces are encouraged to check information held by Interpol whenever a major crime is committed. The rationale behind this is that drug traffickers and similar criminals have international ties, and so it is likely that crimes will extend beyond political boundaries.
Since 2002, INTERPOL has also been maintaining a database of lost and stolen identification and travel documents allowing member countries to validate whether a document issued by another country has been invalidated by the issuing authority due to being reported missing or stolen. Passport fraud, for example, is often performed by altering a stolen passport, thus several countries are working on integrating online queries to this database into their standard border control procedures to help identify fraudulent passports from foreign countries when those passports are presented. As of early 2006, the database contained over ten million identification items reported lost or stolen and is expected to grow even more as more countries join the list of those reporting into the database.
A member nation's police force can contact one or more member nations by sending a message relayed through INTERPOL offices.

Member states and sub-bureaus

Sub-bureaus shown in ''italics''.

Afghanistan Albania Algeria ''American Samoa'' Andorra Angola ''Anguilla'' Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin ''Bermuda'' Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil ''British Virgin Islands'' Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde ''Cayman Islands'' Central African Republic Chad Chile China (PRC) Colombia Comoros Republic of the Congo Democratic Republic of Congo Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba

Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana ''Gibraltar'' Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras ''Hong Kong'' Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia

Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg ''Macau'' Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro ''Montserrat'' Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal ''Puerto Rico'' Qatar Romania Russia

Rwanda St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines São Tomé and Príncipe Saudi Arabia San Marino Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Somalia South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey ''Turks and Caicos'' Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Non-member countries

North Korea
Kiribati
Federated States of Micronesia
Palau
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Vatican City

Secretaries-general and presidents

'Secretaries-general' since organization's inception in 1923:

Oskar Dressler	to 1946
Louis Ducloux	to 1951
Marcel Sicot	to 1963
Jean Népote	to 1978
André Bossard	to 1985
Raymond Kendall	to 2000
Ronald Noble	since 2000

'Presidents' since organization's inception in 1923:

Johann Schöber to 1932 Franz Brandl to 1934 Eugen Seydel to 1935 Michael Skubl to 1938 Otto Steinhäusl to 1940 Reinhard Heydrich to 1942 Arthur Nebe to 1943 Ernst Kaltenbrunner to 1945 Florent Louwage to 1956 Agostinho Lourenço to 1960 Richard Jackson to 1963 Fjalar Jarva to 1964

Firmin Franssen to 1968 Paul Dickopf to 1972 William Leonard Higgitt to 1976 Carl Persson to 1980 Jolly Bugarin to 1984 John Simpson to 1988 Ivan Barbot to 1992 Norman Inkster to 1994 Björn Eriksson to 1996 Toshinori Kanemoto to 2000 Jesús Espigares Mira to 2004 Jackie Selebi since 2004

INTERPOL in popular culture

Contrary to what has been featured in some works of fiction, INTERPOL officers do not directly conduct inquiries in member countries. Its main role is the passing on of information, not actual law enforcement.
As an international law enforcement agency, INTERPOL agents offer unique qualities that make them good candidates for fiction, even if such portrayals do not reflect reality.

Examples

★ Thompson and Thomson, detectives in the comic series The Adventures of Tintin, are INTERPOL agents.

★ Inspector Gadget is an agent of INTERPOL.

★ In the show Sealab 2021 Quin calls INTERPOL to find information on a masterlou.

★ In the ''Lupin III'' franchise, Lupin's eternal foil, Inspector Zenigata, is an agent of INTERPOL.

★ In the comedy film Johnny English, it is eventually revealed that Lorna Campbell is an INTERPOL agent spying on Pascal Sauvage.

★ In Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' video game franchise (and many of its adaptations to other media), Chun-Li is an agent of Interpol.

★ In Marvel's ''X-Men'' the now deceased Irish X-man Banshee was a former INTERPOL officer.

★ In the ''Sly Cooper'' series, Carmelita Fox and a few other characters are INTERPOL officers.

★ In the movie ''Lord of War'', Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke) is an INTERPOL officer.

★ In the movie '', Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is told he is on INTERPOL's Most Wanted list.

★ In the manga series ''Death Note'', INTERPOL was trying to capture Kira, a vigilante killing international criminals.

★ In the book and movie ''The Da Vinci Code'', INTERPOL is mentioned several times, mainly in reference to their extensive database of information.

★ In the anime ''Azumanga Daioh'', the character Tomo Takino wants to be an INTERPOL agent in the future.

★ ''The Goon Show'' made a few references to INTERPOL throughout their run in the 1950s.

★ The logo of the Terran Empire within ''Star Trek's Mirror Universe resembles that used by INTERPOL.

★ In the show Batman Beyond which takes place in the mid-21st century, INTERPOL is mentioned in reference to its criminal database.

★ In the original ''Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?'' game from 1985, the user worked for INTERPOL. Later ''Carmen Sandiego'' media instead featured the fictional Interpol-esque ACME Detective Agency.

★ In the Indian movie ''Don'' starring Shah Rukh Khan, the INTERPOL is trying to capture Don.

★ An American band shares the name Interpol.

★ ''Department S'' was a British TV series about a fictional Special investigation department of INTERPOL.

★ The protagonists in the film ''The Medallion'' are agents of INTERPOL.

★ In the game '','' Chris Redfield from S.T.A.R.S. is working with an INTERPOL officer before he turns to Anti Umbrella Activism.

★ In ''Psych'' ''Shawn Spencer'' acts as an INTERPOL agent

See also

★ Europol, a similar Europe-wide organization.

★ INTERPOL Terrorism Watch List

External links

★ Official website

★ Deflem, Mathieu. 2000. “Bureaucratization and Social Control: Historical Foundations of International Policing.” Law & Society Review 34(3):601-640.

★ Deflem, Mathieu; “The Logic of Nazification: The Case of the International Criminal Police Commission (Interpol)”, ''International Journal of Comparative Sociology'' 43(1):21-44, 2002. PDF

★ Deflem, Mathieu, and Lindsay C. Maybin. 2005. "Interpol and the Policing of International Terrorism: Developments and Dynamics since September 11." Pp. 175-191 in Terrorism: Research, Readings, & Realities, edited by Lynne L. Snowden and Brad Whitsel. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.