Client Alert -How Not to Become the World’s Most Wanted: The Misuse of INTERPOL in Commercial Disputes and How Companies and Individuals Can Protect Themselves

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Imagine: You are involved in an ordinary business dispute with an adversary in Russia, or Brazil, or Bahrain. Suddenly, you find yourself an international fugitive, wanted on trumped up charges, unable to travel without risking arrest. Or, worse, you are actually arrested, detained indefinitely, and face extradition to a country where your rights as a criminal defendant are effectively non-existent. Your reputation is shattered, your liberty is taken away, your business is destroyed—all without ever setting foot in a courtroom.

            This nightmare scenario, once unthinkable to residents of countries with established legal systems, is now a real risk of doing business in a global economy. It has become a dangerous strategy employed by unsavory businesspeople and corrupt regimes, who have found ways to misuse the machinery of international law enforcement for commercial gain. And their accomplice—perhaps unwitting—is INTERPOL itself, the global law enforcement agency established a century ago to apprehend the world's most wanted.

            The good news is that there are ways companies and individuals can protect themselves, through proactive legal measures that can limit the risk of this nightmare becoming a reality.

            For nearly a century, INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, has facilitated mutual assistance among law enforcement authorities around the world. While INTERPOL itself has no arrest authority, it functions as a centralized data source, distributing "notices" among its nearly 200 member countries that seek the identification, detention and/or arrest of fugitives sought by any member. The most well-known of these is the "Red Notice," which is a request for member countries to locate and provisionally arrest targets for extradition.[1]

            INTERPOL's Constitution and rules require that member countries seek Red Notices in good faith and only for legitimate law enforcement purposes.[2] But instances of abuse, particularly by member countries with authoritarian regimes, are well documented. Historically, these have included requests for Red Notices targeting political opponents and religious dissidents.[3] Increasingly, however, they also include requests targeting commercial adversaries, as a means to gain leverage in ordinary business disputes.

            Here is how the process may play out: First, a private actor files a complaint with criminal authorities in their home country, falsely alleging misconduct by a commercial adversary and requesting a criminal investigation. Alternatively, a government itself may direct its criminal authorities to investigate commercial parties with whom it has a dispute. Second, corrupt law enforcement authorities issue arrest warrants, often in the absence of any factual or legal basis. And third, the authorities then use the bogus warrants to obtain a Red Notice seeking the arrest, detention, and extradition of the unlucky victim.

            The Firm has confronted such scenarios repeatedly in recent years. Apart from the reputational harm that the mere issuance of a baseless Red Notice can cause, there are other potentially crippling consequences. Targets can be arrested, detained, and deported—even if they have legal status, such as a work visa. And even if they are not arrested, they can be precluded from traveling abroad, based on the high risk of arrest by foreign police authorities. Banks and financial institutions will flag or even close their accounts, and they can find themselves unable to open new accounts or execute financial transactions. And because Red Notices can remain pending for years, these effects can persist indefinitely, wreaking profound personal and professional havoc.

            To its credit, INTERPOL is taking steps to curb such abuse by heightening internal controls on the issuance of Red Notices.[4] And there are also mechanisms in place for individuals and companies to fight back, which the Firm has used effectively in assisting clients. For example, individuals who fear they may become targets of bad actors can file preemptive requests that INTERPOL not issue a Red Notice, supported by information that such a Notice would violate INTERPOL's rules.[5] We have also assisted clients who have been targeted in having INTERPOL cancel Red Notices and remove them from its database.[6] Such requests may be based on the fact that the Notice does not comply with INTERPOL's Constitution or rules, which prohibit the issuance of Red Notices in cases involving purely private commercial disputes and where there is no connection to criminal conduct. Other grounds may be that the Notice was premised on an arrest warrant that did not comply with national laws (e.g., because the target was not afforded due process); that the Notice was obtained based on false claims, for the purpose of obtaining leverage in a commercial dispute; or that the Notice violates fundamental human rights (e.g., the Notice was obtained in an effort to punish a political opponent).

            By simply being aware of the risks, and working proactively to mitigate them, parties involved in business disputes can protect themselves from unlawful attempts to use international law enforcement as a means of extorting commercial settlements.

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If you have any questions about the issues addressed in this memorandum, or if you would like a copy of any of the materials mentioned in it, please do not hesitate to reach out to:

Stephen Frank
Email: stephenfrank@quinnemanuel.com
Phone: 617-712-7165

William Burck
Email: williamburck@quinnemanuel.com
Phone: 202-538-8120

To view more memoranda, please visit www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/publications/

To update information or unsubscribe, please email updates@quinnemanuel.com

[1]   INTERPOL, “Red Notices,” available at https://www.interpol.int/en/How-wework/

Notices/Red-Notices. INTERPOL also publishes Yellow Notices, which are requests for

information about missing persons; Blue Notices, which re requests for the identity of persons

relevant to criminal investigations; and Orange Notices, which are warnings about individuals who

may pose a “serious and imminent threat to public safety”. See INTERPOL, “About Notices,”

available at https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/About-Notices.

[2]   See Constitution of the ICPO-INTERPOL, U.N. Doc. I/CONS/GA/1956 (2023) (noting that INTERPOL seeks to "ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights"'); INTERPOL, Rules on the Processing of Data, U.N. Doc. III/IRPD/GA/2011 (2023) ("The aim of the present Rules is to ensure the efficiency and quality of international cooperation between criminal police authorities through INTERPOL channels, with due respect for the basic rights of the persons who are the subject of this cooperation, in conformity with Article 2 of the Organization's Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which the said Article refers.").

[3]   See,  e.g., Bill  Whitaker  and  Aliza  Chasan, "INTERPOL-The  International  Police

Organization-Accused of Doing the 'Dirty Work' of Authoritarian Members," 60 Minutes (CBS News) (Jan. 28, 2024), available at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/interpol-policing-success­ failures-60-minutes/; Sam Meacham, "Weaponizing the Police: INTERPOL as a Tool of Authoritarianism," HARVARD INT'L REV. (Apr. 11, 2022), available at https://hir.harvard.edu/weaponizing-the-police-authoritarian-abuse-of-interpol/; Josh Jacobs, "Has INTERPOL Become the Long Arm of Oppressive Regimes?" The Guardian (Oct. 17, 2021), available athttps://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/oct/17/has-interpo.l-become­ the-long-,mn-of-oppressive-regimes.

[4]   See, e.g., Jane Bradley, INTERPOL Tightens Oversight on Databases Misused by Autocrats,"

N.Y. Times (Nov. 7, 2024), available at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/world/europe/interpol-oversight-red-notices-blue-notices­ databases-abuse-dissidents.html.

[5]   See INTERPOL, "Who We Are: Commission for the Control ofINTERPOL's Files (CCF)," available at https://www.interpol.int/en/Who-wc-arc/Commission-for-the-Control-of­ INTERPOL-s-Fi les-CCF/How-to-submita-reguest.

[6]   See, e.g., Article 18(1), INTERPOL Rules on the Processing of Data ("Rights of access, correction and deletion of data"); Commission for the Control of INTERPOL' s Files, "Procedural Guidelines              for              Applicants            to           the         Commission"        (Feb.              29,          2024),     available   at https://vv·ww.interpol.int/cn/Who-we-arc/Commission-for-thc-Control-of-lNTERPOL-s-Files­ CCF/How-to-submit-a-reguest.