INTERPOL’s 69th General Assembly, currently convened in Rhodes, Greece, has chosen Jesús Espigares Mira, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Spanish National Police, to succeed Japan’s Toshinori Kanemoto as President of the Organization.

Ronald K. Noble, Professor of Law at New York University and the first US Treasury Under-Secretary for Enforcement has been elected Secretary General of INTERPOL. Mr Noble takes over from the British Raymond E. Kendall, now retiring after 15 years at the helm.

Two new vice Presidents have also been chosen. They are Chief Superintendent Neal Parker of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as INTERPOL Vice President for the Americas, and Superintendent General Kim Joong Kyoun, Chief of Criminal Intelligence in the Republic of Korea as INTERPOL Vice President for Asia. In their new functions they join John Abbott, Director General of Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service and INTERPOL Vice President for Europe, and Mr Augustine Chihuri, Zimbabwe’s Police Commissioner and INTERPOL Vice President for Africa. (Attached is a full list of INTERPOL’s Executive Committee and some biographical notes on Messrs Espigares Mira and Noble.)

In assuming his post as President of INTERPOL Jesús Espigares Mira said that « as with relay races, taking over the baton becomes an important element in a team whose objective is to make INTERPOL the most useful instrument available to all those concerned with law enforcement in their fight against crime ».

Ronald K Noble, in beginning his 5-year term as INTERPOL’s Secretary General, stressed that « INTERPOL must never forget that its client is the rank and file police officer, who in the 21st century must pursue criminals who often have the upper hand in technology and resources and operate in an increasingly borderless world ».

Photographs
Photos of Jesús Espigares Mira and Ronald K. Noble can be downloaded from the official INTERPOL General Secretariat website at http://www.INTERPOL.int

Media contacts, INTERPOL General Secretariat
Press Office General Secretariat Lyon, fax +33 4 72 44 74 07; e-mail a.bernard@INTERPOL.int
Press Office General Assembly Rhodes, fax +30 241 25 047

Attachment 1 to INTERPOL Press Release, Nov.3, 2000

INTERPOL’s Executive Committee, as of November 3, 2000 :

*) Elected on November 3, 2000, by INTERPOL's 69th General Assembly

Attachment 2 to INTERPOL Press Release, Nov.3, 2000

Biographical notes

Director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Spanish National Police.

Jesús Espigares Mira joined the Spanish National Police in 1968. In the course of his extensive professional career, he has held executive posts as Head of the Irun Police Agency, Head of the Barcelona Counterterrorism Squad, Secretary General of the Madrid Police Constabulary, and Commissioner of Police of Eastern Andalusia. In 1996 he was appointed Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) of Spain’s National Police. He has participated in and addressed a large number of courses and seminars on the methodology of criminal research. As Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, he has participated in several international anti-crime fora and frequently met with delegations from several countries and international organisations involved in the fight against organised crime.

At INTERPOL’s 67th General Assembly, held in Cairo in 1998, Mr Espigares Mira was appointed to the Organisation’s Executive Committee.

Born on January 18, 1946, Mr Espigares Mira is married and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law.

Nominated by the INTERPOL Executive Committee in July 1999, and confirmed by the 69th General Assembly on November 2nd 2000, INTERPOL’s new Secretary General Ronald K. Noble has extensive international law enforcement expertise.

Currently Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law, his law enforcement career includes service in both the US Department of Justice and Treasury. In addition to service as an Assistant US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General he more recently was Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the US Treasury Department from 1989 to 1996. In this position he had command overseeing several of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States: The Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service.

A former member of INTERPOL’s Executive Committee, Ronald K Noble has also been President of the 26-national Financial Action Task Force, the anti-money laundering organisation established by the G7 in 1989.

Raised in New Jersey, US, and Germany, Mr Noble holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire and a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.

ENDS