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18 September 2025

The Misuse of Interpol’s Red Notice System in Latin America: El Salvador’s Surge in Notices

El Salvador maintains more than 800 active Red Notices – an unprecedented use of Interpol’s system as an extension of its domestic state of emergency.

Ben Keith & Rhys Davies

According to Red Notice Monitor, El Salvador now maintains over 800 active Interpol Red Notices.

Red Notices are not arrest warrants, but in practice, they often function like them. Detentions at border crossings, arrests during immigration checks, and prolonged detention can all follow from a notice, despite the fact that courts in many jurisdictions consider them insufficient grounds on their own.

Following El Salvador’s declaration of a state of emergency in March 2022, President Nayib Bukele’s government began using Red Notices to extend its anti-gang campaign beyond national borders. By 2025, El Salvador had issued more than 800 active Red Notices – a figure that is four times higher than Argentina’s total, the second highest in Latin America. This unprecedented reliance on the system represents more than just aggressive law enforcement; it reflects an attempt to export domestic emergency powers abroad.

The implications are serious. Since 2022, over 88,800 individuals have been detained under emergency powers in El Salvador, many without counsel or judicial review. In the United States and Europe, courts have rejected Salvadoran Red Notices as lacking evidentiary value, yet they continue to trigger detentions in practice. Charges such as “illicit association” are so broadly defined that they risk ensnaring individuals with little or no actual gang affiliation. For migrants and asylum seekers, the consequences are particularly grave, as Red Notices can lead to refoulement—the forced return of individuals to a country where they may face arbitrary detention.

Other governments in the region, such as Venezuela, have also been accused of politicising Red Notices. But the scale of El Salvador’s deployment stands apart. With more than 800 active notices, the country is attempting to internationalise its domestic emergency regime in a way that tests the limits of international cooperation. The effect is not simply the misuse of a legal tool; it is the erosion of due process guarantees that underpin international human rights law.

Reform is urgently needed. Greater transparency about which states are issuing Red Notices, stricter review of requests grounded in emergency powers, and stronger remedies for those unfairly targeted are all essential if Interpol is to preserve its legitimacy. Without meaningful safeguards, the very system designed to support international justice risks becoming an instrument of transnational repression.

Read the full analysis on Red Notice Monitor.

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Image: Yunming Wang via Unsplash

About the Authors

Ben Keith
Ben Keith Barrister

Ben Keith is a co-founder of IHR Advisors and an internationally recognised lawyer specialising in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges, extradition, international human rights law and asylum. He is the co-author of Interpol, Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell, 2026). He is co-editor of Red Notice Monitor, the leading public resource on INTERPOL Red Notice abuse and the practice of INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of Files.

Ben represents clients across every region in INTERPOL Red Notice and Diffusion challenges before the Commission for the Control of Files. He has secured the deletion of Notices issued by states including Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Belarus, Iran and Venezuela, in cases involving journalists, opposition political figures, refugees, human rights defenders and business figures targeted in commercial and political disputes. He is the author of the INTERPOL chapter in The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations (Global Investigations Review, 2026).

Ben has appeared as counsel before the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber, the UK Supreme Court, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the UN Committee Against Torture. He is a member of the List of Counsel for the International Criminal Court and the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

He regularly acts for politically exposed persons, journalists, human rights defenders and high net worth individuals facing extradition, INTERPOL Notices and other instruments of transnational repression. He provides legal commentary to national and international media including the Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times, The Telegraph, the BBC, Sky News, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, The Economist, Politico and Al Jazeera.

Ben is ranked Star Individual in Chambers and Partners and a leading individual in The Legal 500 for extradition. He practises from 5 St Andrew’s Hill in London.

View Ben Keith's profile
Rhys Davies
Rhys Davies Barrister

Rhys Davies is a co-founder of IHR Advisors and an internationally recognised lawyer specialising in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges, international criminal law and international human rights law. He is the co-author of Interpol, Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell, 2026). He is co-editor of Red Notice Monitor, the leading public resource on INTERPOL Red Notice abuse and the practice of INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of Files.

Rhys co-authored the report Undue Influence: the UAE and INTERPOL with Sir David Calvert-Smith, examining the systemic misuse of INTERPOL’s Notice and Diffusion systems by the United Arab Emirates and the implications for INTERPOL’s governance. He represents clients in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges before the Commission for the Control of Files, with particular focus on cases involving Middle Eastern and Central Asian states, and on the position of refugees, journalists and political dissidents targeted through INTERPOL by their states of origin.

Rhys has significant experience of in-country legal advice and assistance, most recently in the West Bank, and a specific interest in the Middle East. He is a member of the List of Counsel for the International Criminal Court, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. He regularly speaks at, and chairs, events at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and at the House of Commons on matters of international law.

Rhys is the author of numerous articles on INTERPOL Red Notice practice and on justice in the Middle East, and is in demand as a commentator on international human rights. He provides legal commentary to national and international media including The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Financial Times, CBS 60 Minutes, Sky News, City AM and Al Jazeera.

Rhys is recommended as a leading individual in The Legal 500. He practises from Temple Garden Chambers in London and The Hague.

View Rhys Davies's profile

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