Interpol

Interpol(International Criminal Police Organization) - organization that exists to facilitate the cooperation of the criminal police forces of more than 125 countries in their fight against international crime. A general secretariat headed by a general secretary controls the everyday workings of Interpol. Each affiliated country has a domestic bureau (called the National Central Bureau, or NCB) through which its individual police forces may communicate either with the general secretariat or with the police of other affiliated countries. Television and motion pictures have portrayed Interpol agents as wandering from country to country, making arrests wherever they please; such representations are false, since the nations of the world have different legal systems and their criminal laws, practices, and procedures differ substantially from one another. No sovereign state would permit any outside body to bypass its police or disregard its laws. The main weapon in the hands of Interpol is not a universal detective; it is the extradition treaty. Interpol's principal target is the international criminal, of which there are three main categories: those who operate in more than one country, such as smugglers, dealing mainly in gold and narcotics and other illicit drugs; criminals who do not travel at all but whose crimes affect other countries - for example, a counterfeiter of foreign bank notes; and criminals who commit a crime in one country and flee to another. At its headquarters in Lyon, France, Interpol maintains voluminous files of international criminals and others who may later fall into that category, containing particulars of their identities, nicknames, associates, and methods of working, gathered from the police of the affiliated countries. This information is sent over Interpol's telecommunications network or by confidential circular. There are four types of confidential circular. The first type asks that a particular criminal be detained in order that extradition proceedings can be started. The second does not ask for detention but gives full information about the criminal and his methods. The third describes property that may have been smuggled out of the country in which a crime was committed. A fourth deals with unidentified bodies and attempts to discover their identity.