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Continuing our Back to Basics series, we turn to perhaps the most frequently misunderstood element of international policing: the Red Notice itself.
In Part 1 we explained that INTERPOL is a network for sharing police information, not a police force. This part turns to the tool that network is best known for, and the one most often misunderstood: the Red Notice.
A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. That is INTERPOL’s own definition, and INTERPOL is equally clear about what it is not: “a Red Notice is an international alert for a wanted person, but it is not an arrest warrant.”
The warrant, if there is one, is domestic. It is issued by a court or prosecutor in the requesting country. The Red Notice carries that warrant to the other 195 member countries and asks them to act on it.
A notice contains two kinds of information. The first identifies the person: name, date of birth, nationality, photographs and, where available, fingerprints. The second describes the case: the offence, the arrest warrant or judgment it rests on, and a short summary of facts.
A Red Notice can be issued for someone wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence. Article 83 of INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data (RPD) sets thresholds. For a prosecution, the offence must carry a maximum sentence of at least two years’ imprisonment. For a person already convicted, at least six months of the sentence must remain to be served.
Some offences are excluded altogether. A Red Notice cannot be issued for conduct that raises controversial issues of behavioural or cultural norms, for family or private matters, or for purely regulatory or administrative breaches, unless the conduct is connected to organised crime. Private commercial disputes are excluded on the same basis. And every notice must comply with Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution: the human rights requirement and the prohibition on political, military, religious or racial activity.
Every Red Notice request is reviewed by the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF), a team of lawyers, police officers and operational specialists inside the General Secretariat. The NDTF was set up in 2016. Since 2018 it has also reviewed older notices and wanted-person diffusions, including those issued before it existed.
The NDTF screens requests against the Constitution, the RPD, General Assembly resolutions and INTERPOL’s Repository of Practice on Articles 2 and 3. It considers whether the subject is a political activist, journalist or refugee, and whether the case arises in a period of political unrest or an inter-state dispute. INTERPOL’s refugee policy (resolution GA-2017-86-RES-09) means a notice should not normally be published against someone recognised as a refugee by the country that granted protection, where the request comes from the country they fled.
The review is real, but it is conducted on the papers supplied by the requesting country. It does not test the evidence, and it cannot hear from the person concerned. We examine how INTERPOL decides whether a case is “political” in When Is a Case Political? INTERPOL’s Predominance Test.
A diffusion is an alert sent directly by one country’s National Central Bureau to some or all other member countries, and recorded in INTERPOL’s databases at the same time (RPD Article 97). It can ask for the same things as a Red Notice, including arrest.
The practical difference is speed and scrutiny. A diffusion does not wait for the NDTF to authorise it before it reaches other police forces. Wanted-person diffusions are now subject to compliance review, but a diffusion can be acted upon before that review is complete. For the person named, the consequences are much the same as a Red Notice.
The growth has been dramatic. Figures discussed in Easy to Issue, Hard to Remove show Red Notices rising from around 1,500 in 2001 to roughly 62,000 by 2024. Fewer than one in ten is published on INTERPOL’s public website. Diffusions are never published. Freedom House has found that Russia accounts for around 38 per cent of public Red Notices while holding less than 2 per cent of the world’s population.
The imbalance is the point. A Red Notice takes hours to request and can take years to remove.
Each member country decides what legal effect to give a Red Notice. INTERPOL cannot compel any country to arrest.
Practice varies widely. Some countries treat a Red Notice as grounds for immediate provisional arrest. The United States does not treat a Red Notice alone as a sufficient basis for arrest. In the United Kingdom, the Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Act 2020 lets police arrest without a domestic warrant on a request from a specified trusted territory, once the National Crime Agency has certified it; requests from other countries still need a UK warrant. Many states in the Gulf, Central Asia and elsewhere detain first and ask questions later.
Arrest is only one consequence. Banks, employers and immigration authorities check INTERPOL data or public notices, and the result can be frozen accounts, lost jobs and refused visas, even where no country ever seeks extradition.
Most people find out at a border. A minority of notices can be seen on INTERPOL’s public Red Notice page. For everything else, the most reliable route is an access request to the CCF, although disclosure is not guaranteed and the requesting country may object. We answer the most common questions in Do I have a Red Notice? Five Questions Clients Ask.
A Red Notice is an allegation dressed as an alert. Treating it as proof of guilt is the most common mistake made by the officials who encounter one.
Next in the series: Back to Basics Part 3: How to Challenge and Remove a Red Notice.
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Image: ©Shutterstock
Red Notice Monitor launches Back to Basics series to ensure our readers understand the essential elements of Interpol and Red Notices before dealing with the complexities.
In this 4th part of the Red Notice Monitor’s Back to Basics series, we examine how Interpol’s notice system can be deployed when criminals and stolen goods cross borders, using the Louvre heist as our case study.
