Interpol Issues in World Crime and International Criminal justice

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Series Editor: Philip John Stead john Jay College of Criminal justice The City University of New York New York, New York

ANTITERRORIST INITIATIVES John B. Wolf

CRIME CONTROL: The Use and Misuse of Police Resources David John Farmer

FEAR OF FEAR: A Survey of Terrorist Operations and Controls in Open Societies

John B. Wolf

INTERPOL: Issues in World Crime and International Criminal Justice

Michael Fooner

TREATING THE CRIMINAL OFFENDER Third Edition

Alexander B. Smith and Louis Berlin

Interpol Issues in World Crime and International Criminal justice

Michael Fooner

Springer Science+ Business Media, LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Fooner, Michael Interpol: issues in world crime and international criminal justice I Michael Fooner. p. em. - (Criminal justice and public safety) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4899-6977-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-7039-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-7039-8

1. International Criminal Police Organization. 2. Law enforcement-International cooperation. I. Title. II. Series. HV7240.F663 1989 363.2'06'01-dc20

© 1989 Michael Fooner Originally published by Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York in 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989

All rights reserved

89-8443 OP

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

to HELEN, ANDREA, and LAURA

Preface

This book is the product of a wayward research scientist's effort to analyze a world crime-fighting organization that has puzzled three gen­erations of scholars, law-enforcement officers, and legislators in Amer­ica. That organization is Interpol.

Traditionalists are at times mystified by how Interpol came into existence. It was founded in September 1923, five years after the end of World War I, when police chiefs from 20 countries met on their own initiative in Vienna, without authority or instructions from their govern­ments, and formed the organization which today bears the name Inter­national Criminal Police Organization- INTERPOL ("Interpol" for short). Its birth, without the usual formality of a treaty ratified by the member nations, may have been unconventional, but despite this breach of international protocol, governments in all parts of the world have, from the start, been treating it as a legitimate organization and joining. The men who founded it seem to have been endowed with skills not ordinarily attributed to policemen-in diplomacy, in management the­ory, and in social philosophy.

Strangely, in the United States, Interpol has at times been the object of negative official attitudes and of harsh congressional criticism, inter­spersed with periods of benign neglect.

More recently, the organization was able to achieve a vast improve­ment in its image when it adopted more aggressive policies against terrorism and money laundering, two types of international crime that strike at the heart of civilized society's stability. Interpol has been de­scribed as currently providing the "20th century's only new operational

vii

viii PREFACE

approach for combating international terrorists,"l and its bold initiatives to confront money laundering2 have led a growing number of countries to adopt controls of their own.

Because the methods commonly used by governments for combat­ing terrorism in the 1980s are acknowledged failures,3 the Interpol approach may sooner or later receive increasing attention from policymakers.

Additionally, because Interpol activities against money laundering have received the support of the United Nations as well as member countries, government intervention in traditional bank secrecy, which is often perceived as cloaking the proceeds of illicit drugs and firearms traffic, is likely to become the focus of lively controversy. 4

Presumably then, the present generation of scholars, law-enforce­ment officials, legislators, and the public as well will have need of a guide to Interpol that will describe its origins, its perspectives, and its imperatives regarding the various types of international crime. This book is intended as such a resource.

For over half a century, the American professional community has been generally cool toward Interpol, as well as neglectful of the study of its related subject matter-international crime. By and large, university criminal justice departments seem to have discounted these subjects as unimportant, trivial, esoteric, or unworthy of serious attention among the criminal justice disciplines. Even police and prosecutors have pro­fessed little interest beyond individual cases. The general public, being afforded little access to authentic information about international law enforcement, has only been able to identify the subject with the antics of James Bond, the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and similar mythic heroes.

The sharply critical congressional hearings on Interpol in the mid-1970s had two contrasting consequences: Interpol itself launched new and modernized assessments of issues and methods in world crime and justice, while the void at America's institutions of higher learning became more pronounced. Not only have international criminal justice and law enforcement been neglected at the universities, but so has con­sideration of how and where these lines of study interface with such related academic disciplines as foreign affairs, international public ad­ministration, international business administration, and international economics.

Yet scholars in those disciplines cannot neglect much longer such aspects of international crime as laundered money, given the volume and pervasiveness of such money's influence in international affairs, along with its links to drug and firearms traffic and to terrorism.

This book seeks not merely to present facts but also to extract con-

PREFACE ix

cepts from the information presented. Interpol itself has wrestled with crucial issues for two thirds of a century, and during that time, issues rose and receded, and were at times quite divisive before being re­solved. However, history suggests there are no guarantees that an issue resolved has been resolved forever; thus, tracing the issues, as we pro­pose to do here, may have a practical utility of helping to clarify prob­lems in the future.

It seemed logical to organize our treatment into chapters focused on a progression of issues: Interpol's identity (Chapters 1 and 2), its gover­nance (Chapter 3), its organization (Chapters 4 and 5), the instruments adopted for its mission (Chapter 6), and the management pattern that has evolved in the operation of what we and others have called a complex and unique institution (Chapter 7).

Perhaps some explanation of the genesis of this volume may help connect it with the need that it addresses. In November 1973, I pre­sented a research paper, "The Vulnerable Society: Crisis in Technology, Terror, and Victimization," at the annual meeting of the American Soci­ety of Criminology in New York. In it I drew attention to one of Interpol's original creations-the unique system of multinational police coopera­tion-and suggested why that system was capable of reducing interna­tional terrorism or at least bringing it under control.

International terrorism as we know it today had broken out in the early 1970s, but Interpol was then very cautious about getting involved because of the political gambits terrorists were exploiting. Interpol is prohibited by its Constitution from entering matters that are political, military, religious, or racial in nature.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Interpol had developed its multinational police cooperation system at a time when counterfeiting was a major international crime problem. My 1973 paper suggested that the same concept could and should be applied to terrorism. Subsequently, profes­sional journals in the United States and Europe published the paper.s

During the mid-1980s, Interpol decided to address international terrorism directly and did adapt its multinational cooperation system to fight it. Another of my research papers, "Interpol: Some Issues in the Reversal of U.S. Policy on International Terrorism, Drug Enforcement, and Money Laundering," presented at the 1985 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology in San Diego, endeavored to interpret this development.

Having touched on events that occurred over a time span exceeding 50 years in presenting the evolution of present-day terrorism policy, it seemed logical to examine other criminological and criminal justice problems by referring to the issues encountered on the road from the organization's origins to the present.

X PREFACE

No one has ever taken the measure of world crime,6 nor of its major components, "domestic" crime and "international" crime. Domestic crime is the responsibility of the national or local police in each country where such offenses occur, but for international crime, there is no glob­ally organized countervailing force other than Interpol.

Interpol's mandate is the investigation and suppression of drug traf­fic, money laundering, bank swindles, smuggling, traffic in illicit arms and stolen works of art, financial fraud, illicit electronic funds transfer, piracy of cassettes and videotapes, hijacking of planes and ships, theft, arson, and terrorism, and the tracking of fugitives from such offenses­all exclusively on the international level.

Of course, Interpol is only one among many institutions concerned with international crime, but it must be studied as a unique institu­tion-and the central element in its uniqueness is the multinational police cooperation process. In a sense, this entire book is an analysis of that process and of the landmarks along the road of its development.

That process positions Interpol in world affairs, not only as regards law enforcement and criminal justice, but also-because international crime is a major and pervasive force-as regards foreign policy, interna­tional economics, and international business administration.

Basically, this book undertakes to explain matters relevant to crimes and law enforcement, but unavoidably the author at times finds that explanations lead to conclusions, which sometimes can be controversial. A case in point is the author's perception that international terrorism will be brought under control when governments generally allow the Interpol process to become their primary option in dealing with that problem. The reader will judge if such reasoning is persuasive.

How well does Interpol respond to the vast problems of interna­tional crime today? Rigorous assessments are in order, and I hope that this book will help provide them.

NOTES

1. TVI Staff, "Interpol's Response to Terrorism," TVI Journal (Beverly Hills) 6, no. 1 (1985): 3.

2. International Criminal Police Review(St.-Cloud, France)393 (December 1985): 272-273. 3. See Abraham D. Sofaer, "Terrorism and the Law," Foreign Affairs (Summer 1986): 901-

922; David K. Shipler, "U.S. and the Battle against Terrorism: Can a Superpower Be Held Hostage?" New York Times, January 27, 1987; U.S. Department of Justice, Disorders and Terrorism, Report of the Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism, National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (Washington, D.C., 1976), Appendix 1: "The International Experience with Terrorism, An Overview," by H. H. A. Cooper, 419-442.

PREFACE xi

4. International Criminal Police Review (St.-Cloud, France) 393 (December 1985): 272. 5. The report was published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police,

Gaithersburg, Md., in Police Chief, 42 (February 1974): 26-27; and by Interpol in Inter­national Criminal Police Review (St.-Cloud, France) 284 (January 1975): 19-21.

6. Jean Nepote, "International Crime, International Police Cooperation and Interpol," Police Journal (Chichester, West Sussex, England) 21, no. 2 (April1978): 128.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank the Secretary General of Interpol, Raymond E. Kendall, and his staff, and the Chief of the United States National Central Bureau, Richard C. Stiener, and his staff, for their kind assistance in supplying documentary materials and for gener­ously giving of their time in explaining the workings of international law-enforcement cooperation. Thanks are also due the former Secre­taries General, Messrs. Marcel Sicot and Jean Nepote, for their early guidance in my efforts to describe the idea and significance of Interpol, and to John Simpson, the President of Interpol during the time when this book was in process, for his supportive interest in the effort. Thanks are also extended to the many United States law-enforcement officers in such organizations as the Customs Service; Secret Service; Drug En­forcement Administration; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Immigration and Naturalization Service; Internal Revenue Service; Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, and Firearms; U.S. Postal Inspectors; U.S. Marshal Ser­vice; and to the many police officers in Interpol member countries who shared their knowledge in order to help me get the story straight. Their willingness to assist in these ways carries no implication that they en­dorse the author's views or agree with his analyses.

Thanks are further extended to the many colleagues who have re­viewed and commented on sections of the manuscript and given gener­ously of their advice.

Particular thanks are due Philip John Stead, professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and previously at Bramshill College in England, who, as editor of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety series, provided invaluable counsel and encouragement.

xiii

xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The figures on pages 93, 99, 102, 108, and 110 were designed by the author and produced by the studio of Sanchez and Figueroa, Architects, New York.

It is unnecessary to exonerate any funding agencies concerning points of view or opinions expressed in this work-the views and opin­ions are solely those of the author and there has been no financial sup­port from any governmental or private or corporate source that would require a disclaimer.

Contents

Introduction 1

PART I

Chapter 1

The New Age of Crime 2 Money Laundering 3 Interpol and Money Laundering 5 The Origins of Interpol 6 Interpol and Terrorism 9

Chance Encounter 11 The Hubbard Story 12 Notes 15

DESIGNING A GLOBAL CRIME-FIGHTING STRUCTURE

Search for an Identity 19

Notes for a Criminologist's Casebook 20 Aspects of Interpol 23

A Policy Reversal 24 Entering the Antiterrorism Arena 26

Transnational Crime 26 The Multinational Police Cooperation Option 28 Notes 32

XV

xvi

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

CONTENTS

Interpol Identified 35

Aims of Interpol 35 Purposes 36 Principles 38 Politics 40

Legal Status of Interpol 45 Legitimacy Issue 45 A Congressional Inquiry 46

International Legal Status of Interpol 47 Origins and History 48 The Nazi Intrusion 49 Subjugated and Defunct 49 Revival 50 Growth and Intimations of an Identity Problem 51 Recognition 51

Legal Status of Interpol in the United States 53 Origins of U.S. Participation 54 Ambiguities 54 Treasury Department Management 55 Struggle for Power 56

Headquarters Legal Status 58 Notes 61

Governance of Interpol 65

The Documentary Foundation 66 The Constitution 66 The General Regulations 69 The National Central Bureau Policy 70 Rules on International Police Cooperation and on the

Internal Control of Interpol Archives 77 The Deliberative Entities 80

The General Assembly The Executive Committee Advisers 83

Notes 84

80 81

PART II ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS

Chapter 4 Organization of Interpol 89

Perspectives on Organization 90 Powers and Control 90

CONTENTS xvii

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

French Domination 91 Internationalization 91

The Bipartite Structure 92 The General Secretariat 92

Location 94 The Secretary General 95 The Permanent Departments 95

Size 96 Origins 96 Functions 97

Notes 113

Organization of the National Central Bureau Network 115

Triple Responsibility 116 National and Local Levels of Functioning

Referrals 117 Channeling of Contacts 118 Spirit of Good Will 118 Languages and Technical Equipment Rules 119 Status and Stature 119

The NCB Experience of the United States Subbureaus of the National Central Bureaus Notes 125

The Instruments of Multinational Police Cooperation 127

Interpol in Action 127 Beginnings 129 Interpol's Criminal Records 130

117

118

120 124

The Central File Concept: Origins and Issues 130 Extradition 138

The Nature of Extradition 140 Extradition in Relation to Wanted Notices 141 Extradition in Principle 142 Extradition in Practice 142 Other Initiatives 143 Origins and History of Extradition 143 Outlook 145

Communications 147 Volume 147

xviii

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Appendixes

Obsolescence 148 Origins and History 149 Upgrading 149 Caribbean Communications Upgrade Phototelegraphy and Photofacsimile Telex 151 Languages 151 Codes and Encryption 152

Wanted Notices and Circulations 153 Wanted- Red 154 Inquiry-Blue 154 Warning- Green 155 Unidentified Bodies-Black 155

150 151

Missing Persons/Amnesia Victims-Yellow Diffusions or Circulations 155 Other Notices 155

Stolen Art Bulletins 156 Instruction Manuals 156 External Relations 157

158 159

Relations with the League of Nations Relations with United Nations Entities Relations with Other Specialized Agencies

Notes 160

Management of Interpol 163

Finances 165 Meetings 167 Conferences and Symposia 168 Technical Assistance 169 Agendas 170 Voting 170 Control of Police Records 171 Notes 172

Summation 175

Basic Documents on Interpol 181

CONTENTS

155

160

A. Legislative Authority for U.S. Membership 183 B. The Constitution of Interpol 185 C. The General Regulations of Interpol 197 D. The National Central Bureau Policy 209

CONTENTS xix

E. The Rules on International Police Cooperation and on the Internal Control of Interpol Archives 217

F. The League of Nations Convention on Counterfeiting 227

G. Interpol's Resolutions on Terrorism 233 H. List of Interpol Affiliated Countries 237 I. List of Interpol General Assembly Sessions 239

Index 241