Interpol

The International Criminal Police Organization, better known by its telegraphic addressInterpol, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. It was established as the International Criminal Police Commission in 1923 and adopted its telegraphic address as its name in 1956. It should not be confused with the International Police, which takes on an active uniformed role in policing war-torn countries. Interpol is the world's fifth-largestinternational organization in terms of the number of member countries, after the Universal Postal Union, FIBA (the International Basketball Federation), the United Nations, and FIFA (Association football's international governing body).

In order to maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, Interpol's constitution forbids its involvement in crimes that do not overlap several member countries, or in any political, military, religious, or racial crimes. Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized crime, war crimes, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, intellectual property crime and corruption.

In 2008, the Interpol General Secretariat employed a staff of 502, representing 78 member countries. Women comprised 42 percent of the staff.

Each member country maintains a National Central Bureau (NCB) staffed by national law enforcement officers.

Interpol maintains a large database charting unsolved crimes and both convicted and alleged criminals. At any time, a member nation has access to specific sections of the database and its police forces are encouraged to check information held by Interpol whenever a major crime is committed. The rationale behind this is that drug traffickers and similar criminals have international ties, and so it is likely that crimes will extend beyond political boundaries.

Interpol maintains a database of lost and stolen identification and travel documents, allowing member countries to be alerted to the true nature of such documents when presented. Passport fraud, for example, is often performed by altering a stolen passport; in response, several member countries have worked to make online queries into the stolen document database part of their standard operating procedure in border control departments. As of early 2006, the database contained over ten million identification items reported lost or stolen, and is expected to grow more as more countries join the list of those reporting into the database.

A member nation's police force can contact one or more member nations by sending a message relayed through Interpol offices.

Contrary to what has been featured in some works of fiction, Interpol officers do not directly conduct inquiries in member countries. Its main role is the passing on of information, not actual law enforcement.

As an international law enforcement agency, Interpol agents offer unique qualities that make them good candidates for fiction, even if such portrayals do not reflect reality.

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