Interpol issued 100 red notices on India’s request in 2023: CBI chief
CBI Director Praveen Sood on Thursday said Interpol issued 100 red corner notices to nab fugitives on India’s request in 2023, highest ever in a year.
Addressing the 10th Interpol Liasion Officers’ Conference at the agency’s headquarters, he said the global operation centre of the CBI handled 17,368 international assistance requests in 2023.
He said as many as 29 wanted criminals were brought back to India in 2023 and 19 this year so far with the help of Interpol. Emphasising the need for international cooperation in the light of technology, Sood said: “Criminal are no longer constrained by borders, and neither should our efforts to combat them.”
Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, who inaugurated the conference, called for real-time international police cooperation in the age of digitally driven crimes.
“The world today faces a multitude of grave and globalised poly crimes and threats such as terrorism, online radicalisation, cyber-enabled financial crimes, online child sexual exploitation, corruption, drug trafficking, terror financing and organised crime. The police in India have been at the forefront of addressing these challenges through a combination of robust legal framework, innovative initiatives, leveraging technology and proactive international cooperation,” Sood said.
He said: “Law enforcement professionals need to be well-acquainted with various means of coordinating international assistance in criminal matters”.
Addressing the participants, the CBI director further said India joined Interpol in 1949 and had consistently contributed towards operational and organisational success of the international police body.
The CBI as National Central Bureau for Interpol in India connects all law-enforcement agencies both at the Central and state-level through Interpol liaison officers, he said.
In his inaugural address, Union Home Secretary Mohan emphasised the need for close coordination and real-time cooperation among law-enforcement agencies globally to the imminent threats posed by terrorism, transnational organised crime networks, online radicalisation, illicit flow of drugs, arms peddling, cybercrime and terror financing among other things.
He also underlined the importance of international police cooperation in tackling the rapidly evolving landscape of technology-enabled crimes which transcends borders. Stating that the spectre of transnational and organised crimes require real-time international police cooperation, he said: “The international dispersal of crime and criminals has enhanced the need for investigation abroad. Prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crime is increasingly reliant on digital evidence and foreign located evidence”.
