The Command and Co-ordination Centre

The Command and Co-ordination Centre (CCC) links the Interpol General Secretariat, National Central Bureaus in all 186 member countries and regional offices. It operates round the clock in all of Interpol’s four official languages and serves as the first point of contact for any member country faced with a crisis situation.

The CCC’s activities centre on three basic functions:

• to determine the priority level of each message received by the General Secretariat and to reply to urgent requests on a real-time basis.
• to co-ordinate the exchange of intelligence and information for important operations involving several countries.
• to assume a crisis-management role during serious incidents, such as terrorist attacks, and to co-ordinate specialised assistance.

The work of the CCC makes full use of a number of services offered by Interpol, including:

• Instant searches of databases of nominal data, stolen motor vehicles, lost or stolen travel documents, fingerprints, DNA profiles, etc.
• Priority issue of Interpol notices
• Fugitive investigative support
• Support and co-ordination of disaster victim identification (DVI) efforts.

Another crucial function of the CCC is the co-ordination of the deployment of Incident Response Teams (IRT) to the sites of major disasters or terrorist attacks. For example, the CCC initiated Interpol’s response to the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. As news reports of the tsunami first surfaced, the CCC immediately contacted the affected countries to offer Interpol’s assistance. It also informed its network of national DVI teams of the situation and offered to co-ordinate victim identification efforts.

An IRT was immediately sent to Thailand to assess the situation and to begin co-ordination and data management efforts on the ground for the more than two dozen DVI teams which had arrived. Interpol IRTs were later sent to Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Immediately following the Madrid train bombings in March 2004, an IRT consisting of Spanish-speaking specialised police officers and analysts was sent to help with the investigation. Through the co-ordination of the CCC, a number of investigative leads and intelligence reports were produced, which greatly assisted the Spanish National Police. Most recently, IRTs have been sent to Bangladesh and Bali, Indonesia, following terrorist attacks.

During major events such as the Olympic Games, the CCC co-ordinates the General Secretariat’s support to law enforcement authorities in the host country through the placement of an Interpol liaison officer. This liaison officer has a direct line to the General Secretariat and an I-24/7 terminal which enable the officer to:

• conduct checks of Interpol databases
• send out notices
• request analytical support
• access all Interpol services quickly and easily.

There are various other services the CCC provides, including the publishing of Orange Notices, which are used to warn police, public institutions and other international organizations about potential threats posed by disguised weapons, parcel bombs and other dangerous objects or materials. A number of these notices have been issued, including ones related to parcel bombs sent to members of the European Parliament and the devices used in the Madrid train bombings.

The CCC also facilitates additional assistance in co-operation with specialised units at the General Secretariat to make available experts from Interpol or member countries in different fields of police work such as forensic science, DNA, incident management and explosives.

The centre is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by three shifts of teams. Police officers seconded to the General Secretariat from their national administrations act as team leaders. Each team consists of staff members of various backgrounds and nationalities who are fluent in several different languages.