Cate Brown, Max Hudson and Julia LuftBBC Eye Investigations
BBC
Businessman Igor Pestrikov discovered Moscow had put him on a wanted list after he fled Russia in 2022
Thousands of recordsdata offered by a whistleblower at Interpol expose for the primary time the extent of Russia’s obvious abuse of the worldwide policing company to target its critics overseas.
The knowledge offered to the BBC World Service and French investigative outlet, Disclose, reveals that Russia is using Interpol’s wanted lists to request the arrest of individuals similar to political opponents, businessmen and journalists, claiming that they’ve dedicated crimes.
Analysis of information additionally means that over the previous decade, Interpol’s personal impartial complaints unit has obtained extra complaints about Russia than anybody else – 3 times greater than the following highest nation, Turkey.
In addition, it signifies complaints in opposition to Moscow’s requests have led to extra instances being overturned than for some other nation.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Interpol launched further checks on Moscow’s exercise “to prevent any potential misuse of Interpol’s channels in relation to the targeting of individuals within or beyond the conflict in Ukraine”.
But the leaked paperwork counsel these didn’t stop Russia abusing the system and the whistleblower advised us some stricter measures had been quietly dropped in 2025.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP through Getty Images
Interpol says it has techniques in place to keep away from misuse and these have been strengthened lately
In response, Interpol says that yearly, hundreds of the world’s most critical criminals are arrested thanks to its operations and that it has various techniques to keep away from misuse which have been strengthened over the previous couple of years.
It additionally says it’s conscious of the potential affect requests for arrest can have on people.
“When you’re hit with a red notice, your life changes completely,” says Igor Pestrikov, a Russian businessman, whose title seems within the leaked recordsdata.
Interpol is just not a world police power itself, however helps police the world over to co-operate.
A purple discover is an alert to all of its 196 member nations, asking them to find and arrest an individual. A purple diffusion is an identical request however is barely despatched to particular person nations.
Pestrikov discovered he was named in a purple diffusion after he fled Russia in June 2022 – 4 months after the invasion of Ukraine – and utilized for asylum in France.
He felt he had two choices: “Go to the police and say, ‘I’m in the Interpol system,'” and threat arrest or lie low. This could imply “you can’t rent an apartment, your bank accounts get blocked”, which is what occurred to him, he says.
“It’s constant nerves, all the time,” he provides, explaining he was at all times trying over his shoulder. For security, his daughter and her mom moved to one other nation. The police can “break into your house at any time… that’s why you’re like a cornered rat”, he says.
“It’s the stress, the nerves, the pressure, the lawlessness inflicted on you,” that breaks households aside, he provides.
Pestrikov had been a serious shareholder in giant metals corporations in Russia that had been privatised within the Nineties, most notably Solikamsk Magnesium Plant.
In the months main up to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he says authorities ministers pressured him to cease promoting his merchandise overseas and solely provide the Russian market. He believed this might imply his merchandise might be used to make elements for army {hardware}, similar to fighter jets and tanks.
He says it wasn’t simply that he was in opposition to “having to sell much cheaper and to whoever the ministries told me to” however that “it was a moral issue as well… no-one wanted to get involved even indirectly in the production of something used to kill people”.
Pestrikov believes his refusal to comply and the actual fact his spouse on the time was Ukrainian led to his corporations being nationalised and to Russia investigating him for monetary crimes.
After he fled to France, he was fearful that the Kremlin may strive to target him there, so he contacted Interpol and was advised concerning the purple diffusion request, which had handed the company’s checks.
Pestrikov determined to problem it by way of Interpol’s inner, impartial watchdog, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), arguing that Russia’s request was politically motivated.
Interpol’s structure expressly states that the organisation can’t be used “to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character”.
ARIS MESSINIS/AFP through Getty Images
Pestrikov fled Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine started – one of many first cities to be attacked was Chuguiv in jap Ukraine
After Pestrikov had spent nearly two years on the wanted list, the CCF dominated that his case was predominantly political. He confirmed us CCF paperwork that stated the knowledge Russia had offered was “generic and formulaic” and there had been an “inadequate explanation” of the alleged crime. Interpol cancelled the request for Pestrikov’s detention.
Interpol solely releases very fundamental knowledge about illegitimate requests for arrests and since 2018 has not revealed which nations are the topic of complaints and inquiries. This lack of transparency makes it troublesome to assess the dimensions of the issue, however for the primary time, the leaked paperwork reveal a a lot fuller image.
One batch of recordsdata shared with the BBC accommodates a list of complaints despatched to the CCF.
The knowledge is just not full, nevertheless it covers a broad vary of nations, and the place the nation requesting an arrest is listed, there are extra complaints about Russia than wherever else – this has been the case for the previous 11 years.
The recordsdata additionally present that previously decade, no less than 700 individuals who had been wanted by Russia complained to the CCF, and no less than 400 of them had their purple notices or diffusions overturned – that’s greater than for some other nation, in accordance to the information we obtained.
The recordsdata present Russia tried to use Interpol’s messaging system to get details about journalist Armen Aramyan after he left the nation
“Historically it has been Russia who is one of the main perpetrators of abusive red notices,” says British barrister Ben Keith, who has represented many consumers wishing to have their names faraway from Interpol’s wanted lists.
He thinks Interpol has a selected drawback with Russia and that the company’s makes an attempt to stop abuse haven’t been profitable.
He says that he has “a steady flow of clients who are subject to Russian red notices who are either politically connected, or often pro-Ukraine, or alternatively as a result of corporate raiding”.
International lawyer Yuriy Nemets, who specialises in Interpol issues and extradition, agrees that Interpol’s further scrutiny of Russia’s requests for arrests, launched after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has not proved efficient.
He says he’s conscious of various instances by which Russians opposed to the battle “have been targeted for speaking out against what’s going on and were charged with financial… or other ordinary crimes and put into the database based on that”.
“It’s not hard to game the system,” he provides.
As nicely as info on notices and complaints, the Interpol insider additionally offered the BBC with hundreds of messages despatched between particular person nations through Interpol’s messaging system, revealing one other, much less formal route to hint individuals overseas.
One message from Moscow to legislation enforcement brokers in Abu Dhabi defined how Interpol had denied a request for a purple discover, however that it nonetheless wanted assist in tracing the topic’s whereabouts. This goes in opposition to Interpol recommendation that members shouldn’t use its channels on this manner.
The leak additionally accommodates a message about Armen Aramyan, a journalist who had fled Russia after he was convicted of “engaging minors in dangerous activities” for reporting on pupil protests that supported the opposition chief Alexei Navalny in January 2021.
Aleksey Fokin/SOPA Images/LightRocket through Getty Images
Riot police had been deployed when hundreds of individuals throughout Russia protested in opposition to the arrest of opposition chief Alexei Navalny, who died in suspicious circumstances in jail in 2024
Aramyan went to Armenia after which on to Germany. The message from Russia to legislation enforcement entities in each nations sidestepped the extra formal purple discover and purple diffusion course of, and requested for “any useful information” about Aramyan in addition to his whereabouts.
The message was despatched in February 2023, through the time Russia was underneath restrictive measures and its messages had been being checked earlier than being despatched. We cannot say for certain whether or not the message was delivered, however based mostly on the supply of the information, the whistleblower believes that it was.
When the BBC confirmed Aramyan a replica of the message, he stated he was shocked however not stunned.
“I don’t think they expected that Germany [would] send them my address, my phone number, and extradite me, but if they could at least get some sort of tiny bits of information it would still be valuable for them.”
The leak accommodates different messages by which a international legislation enforcement company responds to Moscow’s request for info. It despatched particulars concerning the actions of an ally of Navalny, Lyubov Sobol, and high-profile defector Gleb Karakulov. The alternate relating to Karakulov occurred after Interpol introduced its further vetting of Moscow.
Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool through REUTERS
One report says Russia requested purple diffusions on ICC judges – this got here after the courtroom issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for kids’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, over Ukraine
The BBC additionally gained entry to inner Interpol experiences from 2024 and 2025 which present ongoing concern round Russia’s actions from senior administrators inside the organisation.
In one, a senior determine expresses instantly to Russian delegates “serious concerns” concerning the nation’s “wilful misuse” of Interpol techniques, stating that there have been situations of “flagrant violations” of Interpol guidelines.
Despite the additional restrictions on Russia, the experiences present that roughly 90% of Russia’s requests had been nonetheless passing preliminary checks in 2024. And but, in the identical interval, the CCF was overturning roughly half of all Russian requests that it obtained complaints about. This raises questions on whether or not the measures had been stringent sufficient.
One report describes how in 2024 Russia tried to place purple diffusions on judges and a prosecutor on the International Criminal Court, after the physique issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and one other authorities official for his or her actions in Ukraine. These requests from Moscow had been rejected.
Even whereas issues about Russia’s misuse of Interpol’s techniques had been being expressed contained in the organisation, the experiences additionally present that discussions had been going down in 2024 and 2025 about whether or not to take away further restrictions on Russian exercise.
This appears to have been settled in Moscow’s favour. The whistleblower advised the BBC that in 2025 Interpol quietly dropped some further measures in opposition to Russia — it’s not clear how far this softening could have gone. Despite repeated requests, Interpol stated it was not in a position to remark due to its “strict rules on the processing of data”.
The BBC was unable to disclose all the small print of the leak to Interpol as doing so might reveal the supply. However, when requested concerning the points raised within the investigation, Interpol stated it was “concerned that a number of the accusations seems to come from a misunderstanding of how Interpol and CCF systems work, or factual errors about data and changes within Interpol’s systems”.
“It is untrue to say that we prioritise police co-operation over preventing abuse – Interpol follows its constitution that expressly forbids the use of our systems on information that is of a predominantly political, military, religious or racial character.”
And previously, it has stated it might probably do extra good to stop crimes by guaranteeing that traces of communication stay open.
We requested Russia’s ministry of inner affairs for remark, nevertheless it didn’t reply.
Lawyers Yuriy Nemets and Ben Keith agree that Interpol ought to do extra to stop misuse of its techniques. “If countries are found to be significantly and persistently abusing red notices and diffusions, then they should be suspended from the system for a period of time,” says Keith.
Otherwise, Igor Pestrikov fears that Russia, “with the push of a button, can enter anything, pin any crime on you – this lets them persecute you further around the world”.
Additional reporting: Andreea Jitaru and Ned Davies
