Interpol

Interpol is an international organization that coordinates national law enforcement agencies.

History

According to Hunter, the Redemption Squad is working for Interpol based out of Paris. However this has yet to be confirmed, given that she shared this information to the Illuminatus Falstaff during an act of subterfuge. ("Losers")

Real World Background

Headquartered in Lyon, France, the International Criminal Police Organization – commonly referred to as Interpol – is the largest police organization in the world. Despite it's name, Interpol only provides support, training, and cooperation with various national law enforcement agencies, and therefore has no agents of its own with arresting powers. As part of its effort to streamline communication and extradition between nations, Interpol issues notices to pertaining to many different investigations, ranging from (but not limited to) identifying individuals or organizations wanted for serious crimes, obtaining information on persons of interest, locating missing persons, seeking information on unidentified bodies, and to issue warnings of possible threats.

It was first organized as International Criminal Police Commission in 1923, representing sixteen nations, mostly from Europe. The United States did not join until 1938. By that point, the organization's headquarters in Vienna was also occupied by Germany's Gestapo. In 1946, Interpol moved their operations to Paris, then later Saint-Cloud in 1967, to its present location of Lyon in 1989. The association with the Nazi Party, however, did not end when World War II did. Interpol's 14th president, Paul Dickopf, remained in office until 1972 even though it was already known that he had been an SS officer during the war. [1]

Since 2005, Interpol has coordinated with the United Nations by issuing special notices so that the UN Security Council can better enforce its mandates relating to sanctions (such as of freezing assets and enforcing travel bans) for specific individuals or entities.

It currently has 196 members and operates in four languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.

See Also

• Interpol at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia