Interpol

History

2023: Interior Ministry restricts Interpol's powers in Russia

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Russia issued an order restricting the powers of Interpol in the Russian Federation. The corresponding document on the website of the official publication of legal acts was published on August 18, 2023.

It follows from it that the Interpol bureau will be limited in the possibilities of conducting operational activities in the country. In fact, its employees will only be able to conduct polls, make inquiries and carry out personality identification. The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs explained that the order does not make changes in interaction with the general secretariat of Interpol and the member countries of the organization.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs limited Interpol in the possibilities of conducting operational measures in the country

The Russian Federation, as a full member of the International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol, continues to carry out full-fledged mutually beneficial cooperation through Interpol channels with all member countries of the organization in full, the message says.

The ministry said that employees of the National Central Bureau of Interpol "within the competence carry out operational-search measures," detain those who are on the international wanted list through Interpol channels, accompany the extradition and extradition of those wanted from other countries.

Interpol is the world's largest international police organization, with 195 member states. The main task of Interpol is to develop and coordinate the cooperation of national law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime. Russia joined Interpol in 1990. Its units operate in 80 constituent entities of the Russian Federation (by August 2023). Having access to Interpol tools allows law enforcement officers to coordinate joint actions with foreign partners and conduct joint operations, as well as receive the necessary operational information.

Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Order of March 31, 2023 No. 199

2022: Creation of a unit to combat crypto crimes

On October 17, 2022, Jürgen Stock, Secretary General of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), announced his intention to strengthen the fight against cryptocurrency-related crimes. To do this, a special unit based in Singapore was formed.

According to Mr. Stock, the lack of a legislative framework governing operations with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum creates significant problems for law enforcement agencies. The main difficulties are that often government agencies do not have adequate training or equipment to track and deal with crypto crimes at the initial stage.

Interpol created a unit to combat crypto crimes

The formation of the new unit was announced at a press conference at the 90th Interpol General Assembly in Delhi (India). Digital assets and cybercrime have become the main topics of the event.

Cryptocurrencies are becoming a serious threat around the world. Interpol's global innovation complex in Singapore is working to create a mechanism to solve problems related to cryptocurrency currencies, said Jürgen Stock.

Experts say that tracking cybercrimes is becoming more and more difficult. In such a situation, international cooperation, coordination of countermeasures and real-time information exchange are extremely important.

Interpol's current efforts to track cryptocurrency-related crimes are not the organization's first initiative to prevent illegal digital asset transactions. Interpol has been working to track cryptocurrency transactions and identify criminal activity on the dark web since at least 2015. So, in 2020, the organization entered into a partnership agreement with Trend Micro to combat crypto-jacking - the unauthorized use of devices (computers, smartphones, tablets and servers) for mining cryptocurrencies.^[1]

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