Detectives of all countries, unite!

[Детектив-Молдова]

"Detectives of all countries, unite!"

On September 4, 1923, the Organization of the International Criminal Police was created, which later became known as Interpol

Leslie Harrison was a famous fraudster, but he easily evaded the police, moving from one country to another. This continued until Interpol got down to business.

From Salzburg, the headquarters of this organization received a message that a respectable gentleman, who called himself Lawrence Howard, stopped in a well-known, luxurious hotel. He rented a car and suddenly left the hotel without paying. Soon, the international search engine started working, and responses to requests from Paris began to arrive:

From London: “Lawrence Howard, real name Leslie Harrison, was born in Bedford. Accused of receiving money fraudulently. Wanted. ”

From Amsterdam: “There are four cases of fraud for Leslie Harrison.”

From Liechtenstein: “A car stolen by Howard, aka Harrison, crossed the border and is on his way to Switzerland.”

From Zurich: “Howard stayed at a hotel, spent the night and crossed the French border. He left without paying. ”

Detectives lost track of Harrison in Toulouse. However, a few months later he showed up in Libya. Police in Benghazi detained the stolen Dodge.

The driver made a favorable impression on them, they decided that he did not know that the car was stolen, and they released him, but just in case they reported to Interpol. By that time, the criminal managed to cross the border with Egypt. He called himself British Army Colonel Lawrence Howard. The high rank made such an impression on the customs officers that they let the false colonel pass without checking, warmly waving goodbye. Upon learning of their "puncture", they immediately called to Cairo. 10 days later, a message came to Interpol headquarters: “Lawrence was arrested at the Cecile Hotel in Cairo. Tell us what to do next. ”

This long story is one of the few that has become public. For obvious reasons, Interpol does not advertise the details of its operations.

When was this organization created? We can say that in 1923, and there will be no mistake. However, historians also cite another date - 1914, which is also not without foundation.

On the very eve of World War I, Prince Albert I gathered in Monaco several dozen high-ranking police officers, lawyers and investigators from almost all European countries. The meeting discussed the creation of a structure for exchanging information and joining forces in tracking down and catching international criminals.

Who came under this definition? Drug dealers, slave traders, scammers operating through companies registered in different countries, wanted lawbreakers who committed a crime in one country, but managed to move to another.

The meeting in Monaco was constructive, guests of Prince Albert were able to agree on a lot, but the outbreak of war prevented the idea from being put into practice, and it was "put on the shelf" for a while.

She did not lie there long. In 1923, the Vienna police chief Johann Schober took the initiative to convene a new meeting, the purpose of which could be formulated as follows: "Detectives of all countries, unite!"

Of course, the whole world had not yet reached the point, but the conference was quite representative: 130 delegates from 20 countries announced the creation, as it was then officially called, of the ICPC (International Criminal Police Commission) with headquarters in Vienna. She was there until 1938 - before Austria joined the Third Reich.

The Nazis essentially took Interpol into their own hands. SS chief Reinhard Heydrich was appointed its head, and the Gestapo detectives used the extensive documentation collected in the Vienna archives to pursue opponents of the Nazi regime.

Many dossiers and lists disappeared, and after the war it was necessary to re-establish work. The merit in the revival of Interpol belongs to the inspector general of the Belgian police Luvaz. In 1946, he gathered his colleagues from 19 countries in Brussels. The president was elected (this post went to Luvaz himself), the general secretary and the executive committee. The headquarters is located in Paris.

Ten years later, another very important meeting took place in the “homeland” of Interpol, Vienna, at which the legal foundations of the international search alliance were approved. A new official name was adopted - the International Criminal Police Organization, which has survived to this day.

At that time, it included 55 countries. It was decided that the general assembly of all participants will meet annually, the president is elected for a four-year term, two vice-presidents for a three-year term and a general secretary for five years.

A charter was adopted regulating all aspects of the activity. In particular, article 3 states that it is forbidden to interfere in matters related to the activities of political, religious and military groups.

Several myths were confirmed regarding the activities of Interpol. Contrary to some misconceptions, this is not a law enforcement organization; its employees themselves do not track down and arrest criminals. The main task is to collect information and exchange it, the rest is up to the national police.

Detectives of the participating countries (and today there are more than a hundred of them) are required to supply information about their criminal compatriots, including fingerprints and “fingerprints” of voice and photographs, to the common “data bank”.

Thus, in the Interpol bins accumulated a gigantic amount of valuable information that can immediately be made available to detectives. Despite the modest budget, consisting of contributions from member countries, the organization is well equipped technically. The information is computerized, there are millions of files with fingerprints and photographs on the disks, with cross-references to names and nicknames. In Paris, there is a state-of-the-art communications center, whose operators maintain contact with the national police services around the clock.

In the United States, attitudes toward Interpol are mixed. In 1950, the Americans withdrew from this organization. The then chief of the FBI, Edgar Hoover, believed that in the context of the intensified struggle against communist infiltration, one should not trust partners with "delicate" information collected by employees of his department.

The United States later reinstated its membership. However, the country has repeatedly heard critical voices addressed to Interpol. The need to provide information about American citizens whose criminal activity has not been proven was objectionable. They said that Interpol violates the civil rights of people in different countries. Congress has made claims that it is run by people who are unfriendly to the United States, although by statute the organization should be apolitical.

The veto on interference in politics is complicated by counter-terrorism operations. This is not to say that Interpol is generally eliminating such cases. For example, on the eve of the 1972 Olympics, its representatives in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam informed the Bavarian authorities and the Munich police of possible attacks and even called specific names of potential participants, but did not attach importance to these warnings.

Of course, when the organization consists of 177 member countries, it is difficult to expect complete unanimity and absolute coordination of actions. Nevertheless, judging by the experience of recent years, Interpol has shown high efficiency in cases related to the drug business. Several leaders of international cartels went to jail for a long time.

So the founding fathers of the “detectives international” tried not in vain: their brainchild turned out to be viable and bore and continues to bear fruit in the field of the fight against crime.

Material: Lev Borschevsky
newspaper heading: “ANS” calendar

 

[НСК-СБ]

Thank you Nikolay! Interesting!

 

[Частный детектив. Владивосток.]

Thanks, interesting!

 

[Бюро Рысь]

Thanks read, very interesting!

 

[Евгений СБ]

Thank. Interesting.

 

[Андрей Захаров]

Nikolay, thanks Very interesting

 

[@InfoPoisk]

Informative.

 

[Матушкин Андрей Николаевич]

Thank!!!

 

[Витаутас. Частный детектив г. Вильнюс. Литва]

To this topic yet

History of the International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol

The end of the 19th century was marked by great scientific and technological achievements, the results of which, of course, did not fail to take advantage of the criminal world. The offender committed a high-profile crime in the territory of one state and safely hid in the territory of another, becoming inaccessible to the police. In the absence of bilateral treaties on extradition of criminals, diplomatic channels or personal contacts of police officials were used for their arrest and extradition, which made the work of justice very difficult. There was a keen sense of the need to establish continuous cooperation between states in the fight against "international crime", to bring the organizational and legal framework under it, to develop a joint police force and general principles. As early as 1889, at the constituent meeting of the International Criminal Law Union, its participants noted the emergence of “international crime” and called on the police services of different states to suppress it. In 1905, in a meeting of the Forensic Society in Hamburg, an appeal was made to all states to create special services in the police departments to combat “international crime”.
The history of Interpol began in April 1914. Then in Monaco was the I International Congress of Criminal Police, which was attended by representatives of 24 countries, there was even one representative of the police authorities in Russia. (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavian countries were not present). They agreed on the possibility of creating a special service that would take into account international criminal information and extradition of criminals. At the origins of the organization was the Duke of Monaco, Albert I of the Grimaldi Dynasty, an oceanographer, the owner of several casinos in Monte Carlo, who proposed, to the surprise of delegates, an excellent plan for the international fight against criminal crime.
World War II delayed these plans for almost 10 years. 10 million people died. An unprecedented rampant of crime has begun. Austria-Hungary was particularly affected, the war caused a chaotic population migration, and the number of crimes committed by foreigners increased. Only in 1923 in Vienna at the International Congress of Criminal Police, which brought together police deputies of 138 representatives from 20 states, was the International Criminal Police Commission established (this name of the organization lasted until 1956) and its charter was adopted. This happened on September 7, 1923. The delegates decided that the offender was subject to criminal penalties, regardless of which country committed the crime and where it was discovered. The first president of Interpol was one of the initiators of the Vienna Congress, Austrian police-president I. Schober (future Chancellor of Austria). Vienna sheltered the newly created organization and took care of all the costs associated with its operation and staff costs. Moreover, it was decided that the head of the Austrian police would automatically become chairman of the commission. In 1938, Austria became part of Germany. Quickly assessing the possibilities and prospects of Interpol, even in the prewar years, German national socialists invaded the organization. In 1941, the head of the Nazi police, Reinhard Heydrich, took over as president of Interpol. The headquarters of the organization was moved to Berlin. In 1943, Heydrich was replaced by the Gestapo chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The secret state police of fascist Germany for their purposes actively used the wide capabilities of the international center of the criminal police and its extensive file cabinet. Thus, Interpol became an appendage of the organization, which the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg then recognized as criminal. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the rich archives of Interpol could not be found. Archive leader Zindel committed suicide. There are no living witnesses to the destruction or evacuation of the file cabinet.
In 1946, a congress of the international police society was held in Brussels, attended by representatives of 17 states. Inspector General of Belgium F. Luvaz was elected the new president. Instead of the 1923 charter, provisional provisions were adopted on the goals, objectives and principles of the commission. A clause on the non-participation of the organization in military affairs was included in these provisions. This item was proposed by another legendary figure, the Director of the FBI, Edgar Hoover, who until the last day of the existence of the “Third Reich” maintained contact with the Nazi leadership of the international criminal police commission.
The abbreviation "Interpol" began to be used as the telegraphic address of the Organization. In 1947, the name Interpol accidentally applied, having made a reservation, in relation to the Organization, at the next session of the General Assembly, held in Prague, the representative of Italy D. Dozi. The name liked and took root. The permanent residence of Interpol was Paris, which in the post-war years became, as it were, the center of Europe. The French Ministry of the Interior provided the building for the Organization and took on part of the cost of staffing. Three years later, the UN granted Interpol consultative status of a non-governmental organization.
The post-war years were marked by an active expansion of the Commission's activities, an increase in its importance, place and role in the cooperation of states in the fight against criminal crime. The name “commission” has ceased to correspond to the real status of the Organization acquired by that time.

 

[Витаутас. Частный детектив г. Вильнюс. Литва]

Interpol is the abbreviation of the International Criminal Police Organization (IOUP). This is the only international organization directly involved in the fight against crime.
Interpol was created in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICJM) to coordinate the struggle of various countries with common crimes with a center in Vienna. In 1938, it almost ceased to exist due to the occupation of Austria by fascist Germany. It was reconstructed in its modern form in 1946. The Interpol Charter came into force in 1956. Its members are 184 states. The headquarters is in Lyon (France). It is also a regional center for Europe, the Mediterranean, North America and the Middle East. Other Interpol centers are housed in Nairobi (for East Africa), Abidjan (for West Africa), Buenos Airos (for South America), Tokyo (for Asia) and Puerto Rico (for the Caribbean and Central America). Since 1982 Interpol received the status of the International Intergovernmental Organization at the UN.
The main goals of Interpol
The main goals of the organization are formulated in Art. 2 of the Charter:
1) to ensure and develop broad mutual cooperation of all bodies (institutions) of the criminal police within the framework of the existing legislation of the countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
2) create and develop institutions that can successfully contribute to the prevention and fight against common criminal crime. The Charter prohibits any interference in activities of a political, military, religious or racial nature (Article 3 of the Charter).
Interpol structure
The main decision-making bodies of Interpol are the General Assembly and the Executive Committee. The highest plenary organ of Interpol is the General Assembly, between its sessions, the highest administrative body with narrower powers and composition is the Executive Committee, headed by the President. The permanent working body is the General Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General. A special position in the system of governing bodies of Interpol is held by the National Central Bureaux (NCB), which operate simultaneously in two systems: a separate state and this organization with corresponding double subordination. Closing the system of governing bodies are advisers performing exclusively advisory functions.
The General Assembly consists of representatives from all member countries. The quantitative composition of the delegation is not specified anywhere. However, the charter requires the inclusion of high-ranking criminal police officers, employees whose functions are nationally related to the activities of Interpol, as well as specialists on issues included in the agenda of the next session of the General Assembly (Article 7). Representatives of countries outside Interpol, as well as delegates from international organizations, can participate in the session as observers.
Sessions of the General Assembly are held annually, in the fall, on different continents and in different countries. Each delegation has one vote. The statutory powers of the General Assembly: determine the main areas of cooperation between the police of different countries within the framework of Interpol; prepare and carry out activities facilitating such cooperation; accept new members; consider and approve the work plan and budget for the coming year, elect officials of the organization and solve financial issues. Permanent and temporary commissions are formed here for special studies of specific issues of combating juvenile delinquency, drug trafficking, etc. General Assembly resolutions on organizational and procedural issues are binding, and resolutions to the police and governments are advisory.
In addition to these sessions, representatives of the member states of the organization regularly hold Regional conferences on issues that are inappropriate to bring to the session of the General Assembly. A number of problems require preliminary discussion in the countries of this region. As a rule, a single point of view of a number of countries on this issue is formed here, a single approach to solving it, practical efforts are coordinated and coordinated to combat individual international criminal crimes common in this region.
The Executive Committee serves as the General Assembly between sessions. He oversees the implementation of the recommendations of the General Assembly, oversees the activities of the Secretary-General and prepares the agenda for the next session. The Executive Committee consists of the President elected by the General Assembly (for a term of 4 years), three Vice-Presidents (for a term of 3 years), who should represent different countries and continents (Asia, America, Africa, Australia and Europe) and nine delegates. The Assembly takes decisions by a simple majority vote in the form of resolutions or recommendations. Each Member State represented shall have one vote.
The President of the Interpol Executive Committee is actually the head of the entire organization and directs its activities between sessions of the General Assembly. All management is carried out both through the Executive Committee, and directly by making individual decisions on current affairs. In 1988 The Frenchman Ivan Barbo, the director general of the national police of the French Ministry of the Interior, was elected President of Interpol, under whose authority were all the departments of the French police and their personnel in the amount of more than 125 thousand employees.
Meetings of the Executive Committee are held at least once a year. All decisions are made by a majority vote. However, the President shall exercise his voting right only if the votes of the other members are equally distributed. In the performance of their functions, all members of the Executive Committee act as representatives of Interpol, and not as representatives of their countries (Article 21 of the Charter).
The General Secretariat is a permanent service of the whole organization, includes the Secretary General, specialists and administrative staff. It implements the decisions of the General Assembly and the Executive Committee, acts as an international center for combating general crime, as well as a specialized and information center, provides effective administrative guidance to Interpol, maintains contacts with the National Security Center and international organizations, prepares the necessary publications, and performs the duties of a worker Secretariat at sessions of the General Assembly and meetings of the Executive Committee, liaises with the President, etc.
The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General, who is appointed by the General Assembly for a term of 5 years from among those not older than 65 years. This is the main figure of Interpol in organizing the fight against crime. At his discretion, he selects the staff of the General Secretariat and manages all its services. As of January 1997, the Secretariat had approximately 280 staff members, of whom 16 were contracted. The rest are sent here to work by the police services of member countries of the organization. All these employees are prohibited in the performance of their functions from requesting or following the instructions of any government or other bodies outside of Interpol. They must refrain from any actions that may impede the fulfillment of their international mission (Article 30 of the Charter).
Since 1987, the European Secretariat has been operating as part of the General Secretariat to resolve purely regional problems in combating the illicit trade in drugs on the continent and other crimes and to improve police cooperation between states in Europe. Other organs of the General Secretariat should include the service of the General Secretariat, a special unit for carrying out general work and strengthening the security of the organization. Currently, the secretariat has 4 departments: administrative, police, research and technical support. Of greatest interest is the work of the police department, which coordinates the cooperation of the police organs - members in the fight against crime. In its structure, there are sub-divisions to combat the illegal trade in arms and international terrorism. Another subdivision processes information on the manufacture and sale of counterfeit paper and metal money, traveler’s checks, bonds, stocks and other counterfeiting facts. It has its own expert laboratory for the study of counterfeit securities; a special newsletter, Counterfeiting and Counterfeiting, is being prepared and published, with more than 15 thousand banks and issuing institutions all over the world subscribing to it.
A special subdivision of the police department collects and analyzes information on drug trafficking. It includes the service of the head of the department with a special unit for relations and cooperation, located in Bangkok (Thailand), the operations group and the intelligence group. Great help in the work is provided by regional bodies to combat these crimes. The unit is led by a senior official from the US Department of Justice's Narcotics Administration.
National Central Offices (NCBs) are established within the police structure of each Interpol Member State. They are the centers of international cooperation of states in the fight against crime, the strongholds of Interpol in the field. As already noted, in a particular state, the NCB is a permanent body of Interpol. At the same time, it is the police body of this state, endowed with great powers to combat crime. There are no such bodies in any international organization. As the strongholds of international police cooperation, the NCB in its countries maintains business relations with the court, prosecutor's office, border and customs services, and at the international level - with the NCB of other countries and the General Secretariat.
Practical implementation of international cooperation within the framework of Interpol
Requests and inquiries from the General Secretariat and the NCB of individual states, vested with the right to label their documents with the stamp “Interpol”, go to the head of the NCB of that country, and not to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or another government agency. The head of the NCB without delay, in an orderly manner, instructs the subordinate services or officials to fulfill the request by the deadline. This ensures the efficiency and high efficiency in the activities of the NC and the entire Interpol.
The “NCB Doctrine”, adopted at the 34th session of the Interpol General Assembly in 1965, also noted another area of activity: the NCB, as the representative of Interpol in the state, should seek the active participation of the national police service in the affairs of Interpol, inform its personnel about the benefits of staying in this organization, explain the conditions and principles of international police cooperation in its system. At the same time, the NCB should become the center for the propagation of Interpol's policy, the initiators and conductors of the implementation of all decisions of its General Assembly.
Advisers are entrusted with the scientific development of individual issues (Article 34 of the Charter). The list of such issues includes the problems of combating the illegal distribution of narcotic and psychotropic drugs, juvenile delinquency, the identification and search for firearms, the use of electronic computer technology in police work, the transmission of fingerprint images using communication tools, etc. The Secretary General has the right to invite specialists from among scientists and practitioners who are well established in a particular field of knowledge, work or craft. If such a person agrees to conduct a specific scientific research, a specialist is appointed by a decision of the General Assembly to the position of consultant for a period of three years. The early dismissal of consultants may only be carried out by decision of the General Assembly.
Consulting advisers can perform their research and other functions both at the headquarters of Interpol and at the place of permanent service and residence in their country. They are given the right to attend sessions of the General Assembly as observers, and at the invitation of the president they can participate in the discussion of agenda items.
The main activities of Interpol
The first is criminal registration. Being the universally recognized and most effective means of solving international criminal crimes, tracing and detention of international criminals, it is organized by the General Secretariat according to a special technique in order to identify both criminals and some crimes. The main identification features are demographic data, the external characteristics of the object, the method of committing a crime (“modus operandi”), special signs of a person, his habits, gait, manner of behavior, etc. Criminal registration is divided into two main types: general and special. The object of general registration is information on international criminals and criminal offenses of an international element. Special registration captures fingerprints and photographs of criminals. For each type of criminal registration, file cabinets are maintained. These include:
1) an alphabetical file of all known international criminals and persons suspected of criminal activity, in which all the demographic and other information, including the criminal “profession,” is set out on a special card (at the end of 1996, for example, it included more than 4 million criminals, of which more than 3,000 thousand are actively operating, on which an additional personal “dossier” is kept with data on their criminal record, relocations and contacts);
2) a card file of a verbal portrait of criminals, which contains information about the appearance of criminals by 177 indicators (CS) of the member states of the organization, fill out a special card for each international criminal and send it to the General Secretariat, having received a request with a verbal portrait of the wanted person, experienced employees find the corresponding card, take a photocopy from it and send it to the addressee;
3) a file of documents and titles, consisting of two sections. The first one takes into account the numbers, series and other details of the passport, identity card, certificate of ownership of an airplane, car, firearm, movie camera and other documents used by international criminals. The second section contains cards with the names of ships, aircraft, cars that transported drugs, jewelry, etc., as well as the names of firms or organizations involved in international crimes);
4) a file of crimes and methods of their commission, which consists of several card files with a description of the name and methods of committing homogeneous groups or certain types of crimes: drug trafficking, counterfeiting, arms smuggling, hijacking and hijacking of aircraft, etc .;
5) a fingerprint file of ten fingers registration, the cards in which are arranged in accordance with the formula known in forensics as the “Galton and Henry formula”. Here are collected more than 300 thousand cards. About 10 thousand pieces are replenished annually. With its help, criminals are identified;
6) a card for recording persons according to their appearance using photographs or drawn details of their faces (photographs and drawings here are located by type of criminal “profession”: drug dealer, hotel thief, counterfeiter, etc. The photo library contains more than 10 thousand photographs of the most dangerous criminals).
Cooperation of states in the fight against crime is carried out in several directions:
1. Recognition of the danger to the community of states of certain criminal acts and the need for joint measures to prevent them. In addition to the crimes considered in this work, terrorism, hostage-taking, illegal trafficking in human beings, illegal seizure of aircraft, etc. can also be such. The danger of precisely these acts is recorded in the agreements.
2. Assistance in the search for offenders hiding in foreign territory. There are two possible channels of implementation - through diplomatic institutions and through direct links between the authorities conducting search and inquiry in the country (law enforcement agencies). It is worth noting the expansion of this area of cooperation: if earlier the state turned to a specific country with a request to search for or extradite a criminal, then this search is currently being conducted on a global scale, and not only an escaped criminal is declared wanted, but also stolen property. In order to facilitate the search, information is sometimes exchanged.
3. Assistance in obtaining the necessary materials in a criminal case. If a crime is committed or committed in several countries or part of it is committed in another state, etc. Witnesses and material evidence may be in another state. In order to receive case materials, in some cases it is necessary to carry out investigative actions abroad, which is carried out by sending an appropriate separate order (comissions rogatoires). This may be an order to interrogate a witness, a victim, to inspect the scene of the incident, etc. The agreement determines what kind of instructions can be given to the relevant authorities of another state. The body that is to fulfill this order is guided by its national procedural rules, and answers to all questions raised in the order must be given.
4. Providing practical assistance to individual states in resolving crime problems, studying these problems. This type of assistance is expressed in the direction to certain countries of experts called upon to provide specific assistance (to identify the main areas of the fight against crime, give recommendations on the organization of the penitentiary system, etc.).
5. The study of crime and the fight against it. To this end, international congresses are convened. Conferences, international organizations are created, research institutes.
6. Exchange of information. States often agree to provide each other with the information necessary for the successful investigation and capture of a criminal, as well as other criminal information. In particular, the exchange of information on sentences imposed on citizens of another country. Typically, this kind of information is exchanged once a year.