INTERPOL Data Retention After Operation Jackal IV

On 25th August 2026, INTERPOL announced the results of Operation Jackal IV, an eight-month operation against West African organised crime networks that ran from November 2025 to June 2026 and involved twenty-two countries across six continents.

What Operation Jackal IV Achieved

The operation targeted money laundering networks, high-value targets, and criminal assets and led to fifty-eight individuals being arrested and 263 suspects being identified. Tomonobu Kaya, director of INTERPOL’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, presented the results as a demonstration of what international police cooperation can do.

INTERPOL functions primarily as a communications system, enabling the distribution of criminal intelligence across national boundaries. Each of its 196 member countries maintains a National Central Bureau, staffed by its own police, which connects that country to the General Secretariat and to every other member throughout the I-24/7 network. Member countries send data to the central databases which hold nominal records on individuals alongside fingerprints, facial images, and DNA profiles. Specialist units, among them the Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre that coordinated Jackal IV, analyse what comes in and push intelligence back out. This is INTERPOL doing the job for which it was designed.

What Happens to the Data of Those Never Arrested

INTERPOL data retention does not depend on arrest, charge, or conviction. Personal data recorded in the nominal database is held for an initial period of five years and that period can be renewed on request. Article 50 of the Rules on the Processing of Data requires the contributing entity to review periodically whether continued retention is still justified, and the General Secretariat asks the same National Central Bureau that supplied the record to conduct that review before the period runs out. Nothing in the rules requires a prosecution to follow and nothing requires anyone to tell the individual that a record exists.

The Practical Consequences

A record in INTERPOL’s files is acted on by governments, banks, and employers. Visa applications are refused without stated reasons. Banks decline transfers and close accounts, describing the closure as a commercial decision. Border control repeatedly pulls individuals aside for questioning.

Operation Jackal IV stands as an example of when the INTERPOL system works and when it does not. It highlights one of the faults of the system whereby individuals who may have never committed a crime can remain on file for multiple years, with significant consequences to their lives.

How Data is Removed

Requests for access to, correction of and deletion of INTERPOL data go to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files, the independent body that supervises INTERPOL’s processing of personal data. The Commission’s Requests Chamber decides the application and INTERPOL is bound by its decisions on deletion. Any person may apply. However, an application depends on the individual affected knowing that something is there and often people identified in an operation are never told.

How IHR Advisors Can Help

IHR Advisors act for people who believe their data sits in INTERPOL systems after an operation. Our work covers requests for access under the CCF statute, applications for deletion, and pre-emptive submissions made before a notice is ever requested.

If you have reason to think an operation has left your name in INTERPOL’s systems, contact us in confidence at info@ihr-advisors.com.

The original INTERPOL announcement on Operation Jackal IV can be read here.