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Red Notice Monitor editor Ben Keith has written for The Times on why Russia’s misuse of INTERPOL continues four years after the organisation placed Moscow under heightened supervision. The article takes as its starting point the joint statement on transnational repression issued on 23 September 2026 by more than 40 UN human rights experts, which names Red Notices and Diffusions among the tools States misuse against their opponents abroad.
The core of the argument is a mismatch in the data. Leaked INTERPOL files reported by BBC Eye in January, on which Ben advised the BBC, showed about 90 per cent of Russian requests clearing INTERPOL’s initial checks in 2024. The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files was overturning roughly half of the Russian cases brought before it. A filter that passes nine in ten requests, when half of those challenged turn out to be defective, is not doing much filtering.
The article also describes a case from Ben’s own practice. A senior Ukrainian responsible for part of the country’s power supply became the subject of a Russian case opened only after the invasion. He was arrested in Moldova, and then in Italy while his CCF application was pending. The CCF statute allows nine months for a decision on an admissible request. The decision took almost two years. It found the notice politically motivated and ordered deletion, but by then the damage of two arrests and two years of restricted travel had been done.
Ben’s proposals are aimed at the States that fund INTERPOL rather than at INTERPOL itself. He asks the UK, the EU, the United States and Canada to press for formal corrective measures against Russia: detailed examination of every Russian Red Notice before publication, a block on Russian Diffusions unless vetted first, immediate suspension of a notice once a complaint is lodged, decisions within months, and a fresh review of existing Russian notices. Diffusions matter most here. They move directly between national central bureaus and are reviewed, if at all, after the person has been stopped.
These points echo the arguments Ben and Rhys Davies made in the Kyiv Independent on how Russia targets Ukrainians through INTERPOL. Anyone already affected can read our guide on how to remove a Red Notice.
The CCF can delete an abusive notice. Without speed and sanctions, Moscow does not mind.
The article was first published in The Times and can be read here.
