The Economist December 4th 2021 63
InternationalGlobalcrime
Interpolitics
A
li ahmad, a British security guard, was
arrested while on holiday in the United
Arab Emirates (uae) in 2019. He had attend
ed a football match, and was wearing a Qa
tari team shirt. He had no idea that the uae
was in the midst of a blazing diplomatic
row with Qatar. He was arrested, beaten,
electrocuted, stabbed and deprived of
sleep, he says. He was eventually released,
but still suffers flashbacks.
Justice in the uaecan be both arbitrary
and rough. So humanrights activists were
appalled to discover, on November 25th,
that an Emirati official had been elected
president of Interpol, the global police
agency. Ahmed Naser alRaisi was not just
inspectorgeneral of the uae’s interior
ministry at the time of Mr Ahmad’s ordeal;
he is accused of complicity in it and in oth
er abuse, all of which the uae denies.
Meanwhile, Hu Binchen, an official from
China’s ministry of public security, was
elected to Interpol’sexecutive committee.
Interpol is the world’s largest police or
ganisation. But it has no agents of its own,
nor does it conduct its own investigations.
Its role is to help lawenforcement agen
cies track down fugitives and share infor
mation. It also coordinates crossborder
operations, such as one this year involving
specialised police units in 20 countries,
from Cambodia to Ireland. It targeted ille
gal gambling and investment fraud and
achieved more than 1,000 arrests.
Interpol helps to investigate human
trafficking, child sex abuse and modern
slavery, and is increasingly involved in
fighting terrorism, too. It runs a vast data
base of stolen passports, which are often
used by criminals to cross borders. Its im
portance has grown as organised crime has
become more globalised. “Police chiefs
from around the world are telling me
that...80% or 90% of their investigations
into organised crime nowadays have an in
ternational dimension,” says its secretary
general, Jürgen Stock, a former vicepresi
dent of the German federal police.
Over the past few years, however, fears
have spread that Interpol has come under
the influence of repressive governments.
Countries like Russia, China and Turkey
have sent the body “red notice” requests
for the arrest of large numbers of people,including critics and refugees. They have
also managed to have their officials elected
to top jobs. In 2016, Interpol chose a Chi
nese security official, Meng Hongwei, as
its president. Two years later, after Mr
Meng was detained during a trip home,
Russia came close to having an ally of Vlad
imir Putin elected as his successor. Mr Rai
si’s home, the uae, is a monarchy with a
poor humanrights record whose courts
submit to unelected leaders.
His elevation to the top job has revived
concerns about the long arm of authoritar
ian regimes. Mr Raisi faces criminal com
plaints, based on claims of involvement in
torture and arbitrary detention, in at least
five countries, including France, where
Interpol is based in the city of Lyon. The
uaehas denied the allegations. Its media,
which are tightly controlled, have carried
no mention of them. In private, officials
dismiss them as a “smear campaign”.Who’s your figurehead?
The Interpol president’s scope for influ
encing the organisation is limited. His job
is unpaid and parttime, and is not as im
portant as that of the agency’s secretary
general, Mr Stock. The president’s most
visible role is to chair the organisation’s
annual general assemblies. But he also
chairs the three annual meetings of Inter
pol’s executive committee, which oversees
the work of its general secretariat. Insiders
say the fact that a Chinese official held the
presidency for two years did not affect the
agency’s operations. But it was not for lackI STANBUL, MOSCOW AND ROME
A tussle for control of Interpol pits good cops against bad