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Ben Keith has written for The Times on Russia’s continuing abuse of INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions, and on why the democracies that fund INTERPOL now have to act. The piece, published in October 2026, draws on the UN joint statement on transnational repression of 23 September, on leaked INTERPOL data reported by the BBC in January, and on a case in which Ben acted for a senior Ukrainian pursued by Moscow after the full-scale invasion.
Yes. INTERPOL placed Russia under heightened supervision in March 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, and has since presented the problem as contained. The figures do not support that. A BBC investigation based on leaked INTERPOL files found that about 90 per cent of Russian requests were still passing INTERPOL’s initial checks in 2024. Over the same period the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) was overturning roughly half of the Russian cases that reached it.
Those two numbers sit badly together. If half of the challenged requests fail on review, the screening at the front door is letting through far more than it should.
Ben’s client is responsible for part of Ukraine’s power supply, and so for part of its war effort. Russia opened a criminal case against him only after February 2022, and INTERPOL circulated the request. He was arrested in Moldova. While his application to the CCF was pending, he was arrested again in Italy, where he was eventually discharged.
The CCF’s own rules give it nine months to decide an admissible complaint. This one took almost two years. The eventual decision was emphatic: the notice was politically motivated, it breached his human rights, and it was deleted. For two years before that, a man his country needed could not travel freely.
That is the gap the article is about. Deletion is a real remedy, and INTERPOL deserves credit for removing abusive Russian notices. It does nothing for a person detained at an airport while the file sits in a queue.
INTERPOL treats its 196 member countries as equals and relies on their cooperation, so it is unlikely to discipline Russia unprompted. Ben argues that the pressure has to come from the States that provide most of its funding. He calls on the UK to work with the EU, the United States, Canada and others to press for formal corrective measures against Russia under INTERPOL’s own rules, going well beyond the 2022 supervision. Specifically:
The UN experts have already asked INTERPOL to strengthen discipline against repeat offenders. A State that persistently lies to an international police organisation should not be treated as a member in good standing.
We act for people facing politically motivated Red Notices and Diffusions from Russia and other States with a record of misuse. That work includes CCF applications for deletion, requests to suspend a notice while a complaint is decided, and pre-emptive submissions to INTERPOL before a notice is issued. Where an arrest has already happened, we work with extradition counsel in the arresting country so that the evidence of political motivation is before the court and before INTERPOL at the same time. Through our international law practice we also take cases to the UN Special Procedures behind last month’s statement.
Our thanks to The Times for publishing the full article. Ben’s earlier analysis of the UN joint statement on transnational repression can be found here.
If you think you may be the subject of a Russian Red Notice or Diffusion, 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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