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INTERPOL has published seven excerpts of decisions taken in 2026 by the Requests Chamber of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF). Five ordered the deletion of a Red Notice or Diffusion. Two did not. Read as a set, they show that the Commission deletes data when the requesting state cannot say what the applicant personally did.
A Red Notice must set out accurate, clear and relevant facts linking the wanted person to the offence, under Articles 12 and 83(2)(b)(i) of INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data (RPD). Three of the five deletions turned on that rule.
In Decision Excerpt No 7, a company controller was wanted for smuggling frozen goods. The notice described his employees’ smuggling in detail and his own conduct hardly at all. The Commission called the account of his role ‘conclusory and imprecise’, and found the NCB’s reply ‘merely mirrors the basic information already available in the Red Notice’. In No 4, a lawyer was accused of laundering money for a pyramid scheme on the strength of a single payment from a company director. The Commission held that ‘this transfer alone does not describe the commission of money laundering by the Applicant’.
No 5 applies the same standard to Diffusions, through Articles 12, 35, 37(h) and 99(2) RPD. A Diffusion built on customs declarations was ‘extremely vague and general as to the concrete acts attributed to the Applicant’. The requirement, the Commission said, ‘is not purely formal’. Other states need the facts to test dual criminality before they arrest anyone.
A refusal of extradition does not, on its own, make INTERPOL data non-compliant. The reason for refusal matters. In No 2, a court refused to surrender a man convicted of fraud in absentia because of real risks of an unfair trial and persecution, and the requesting state could show no attempt to notify him. The Commission treated the refusal as ‘additional evidence’ under Article 2 of INTERPOL’s Constitution and deleted the notice.
In No 6, a refusal based only on a limitation period did not defeat a drugs Red Notice. The Commission did order the refusal recorded on the file under General Assembly Resolution AGN/53/RES/7 (1984), so every NCB can see it. For a client who travels, that addendum has real value.
In No 3, abduction and murder charges rested on co-defendants’ confessions. A regional human rights court had found three of those co-defendants were tortured in the same proceedings. The judgment did not concern the applicant, yet the Commission held it showed ‘the serious risks of being tried based on such evidence’ and deleted the notice. Case-specific findings about co-defendants did what general country reports rarely do.
No 1 failed on every ground: the role was clearly described, the commercial-dispute argument belonged in domestic courts, and the applicant could not prove the requesting state knew where he was. In No 6, the applicant’s home state does not extradite its nationals, which explained why no request had been made there.
We bring CCF applications and requests for deletion for people subject to Red Notices and Diffusions. The 2026 decisions confirm the approach we set out in What Wins at the CCF?: press the NCB on the individual’s own role, put extradition judgments and co-defendant findings before the Commission, and build Article 2 arguments from evidence specific to the case. Where a matter raises wider human rights questions, we draw on our international law practice.
The full decision excerpts are available on INTERPOL’s CCF sessions and decisions page.
If you are subject to a Red Notice or Diffusion that does not describe what you are said to have done, contact us in confidence.
If you would like to speak with us about our areas of practice or anything else please contact us via the form linked below.
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