INTERPOL issues 3,000th Red Notice of the year

A Red Notice seeks the arrest or provisional arrest of a wanted person with a view to their extradition.

INTERPOL’s General Secretariat issued notice number 3000 on 11 December on behalf of its National Central Bureau in Guatemala for a Guatemalan citizen charged with financial offences.

“Reaching this impressive total of 3,000 Red Notices issued in a single year is testimony to the hard work of the National Central Bureaus in each of our 186 member countries,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

“It also shows increasing collaboration and co-operation between law enforcement agencies around the world and demonstrates that requesting INTERPOL’s assistance is key in locating fugitives, no matter where they attempt to evade justice.”

A Red Notice is effectively an international wanted persons notice and seeks the arrest or provisional arrest of a wanted person with a view to their extradition. It can be requested by any INTERPOL member country – this year, 115 countries have requested the issuance of a Red Notice – and is issued by INTERPOL’s General Secretariat.

Fraud is the main charge against Red Notice subjects, with 1,079 notices linked to fraud this year. Other main offences are life and health (e.g. murder and assault) – with 784 notices, while 427 were linked to theft, 344 to drugs, 299 to organized crime, 268 to counterfeiting and 179 to weapons/explosives charges. Terrorism and sex crimes were also high on the list with 145 and 146 notices published respectively (note: a notice can be for more than one type of crime).

There are currently 12,679 Red Notices in circulation. So far this year, 562 people have been arrested on the basis of a Red Notice, compared with 552 arrests in 2006.

Fugitives wanted by INTERPOL and arrested in 2007 include Christopher Paul NEIL, the subject of INTERPOL’s first ever global public appeal to identify and locate a previously unknown man pictured sexually abusing children in images posted on the Internet.

Other high-profile Red Notice subjects include Osama bin Laden with the original request for his addition to INTERPOL’s wanted list made by Libya in 1998. Spain and the USA have also now issued Red Notices for bin Laden.