Organization. INTERPOL was founded in 1923, disbanded in 1938 and reconstituted in 1946. The International Criminal Police Organization—INTERPOL was created to ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the law existing in the different countries worldwide and the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.

Aims. INTERPOL provides a co-ordination centre (General Secretariat) for its 190 member countries. Its priority areas of activity concern criminal organizations, public safety and terrorism, drug-related crimes, financial crime and high-tech crime, trafficking in human beings and tracking fugitives from justice. INTERPOL centralizes records and information on international offenders; it operates a worldwide communication network.

INTERPOL’s General Assembly is held annually. The General Assembly is the body of supreme authority in the organization. It is composed of delegates appointed by the members of the organization.

The Executive Committee, which meets four times a year, supervises the execution of the decisions of the General Assembly. The Executive Committee is composed of the president of the organization, the three vice-presidents and nine delegates.

The General Secretariat is the centre for co-ordinating the fight against international crime. Its activities, undertaken in response to requests from the police services and judicial authorities in its member countries, focus on crime prevention and law enforcement.

As of Feb. 2017 INTERPOL’s regional offices were located in Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Harare, Nairobi, San Salvador and Yaoundé.

  • Headquarters: 200 Quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon, France.

  • Website: http://www.interpol.int

  • President: Meng Hongwei (China).