Purpose: To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities, within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (b) To establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.

Date of Origin: 1923

Current Membership: As of 30 October 1997, there are 177 Member States of the Organization

Staff: 318 people

Structure: Interpol's governing bodies are its General Assembly and its Executive Committee; they make decisions and have supervisory powers. The Organization's permanent departments constitute the General Secretariat which is responsible for implementing the decisions and recommendations adopted by the two deliberative organs and whose close contacts with the INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) in the various member countries provide the framework for day-to-day operations.

Recent Participation: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Interpol are making plans to send investigation teams into Kosovo as soon as hostilities tone down there. The investigation teams hope to find evidence in support of the prosecution of people indicted for war crimes. The ICTY hopes to record forensic and other evidence in as much abundance as possible but it is hypothesized that most of the necessary evidence will be contaminated or lost. Because of this, the Prosecutor has asked for Interpol's help in the matter as well as Interpol's 177 countries in terms of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams and other crime specialists. At this point it is unknown what types of materials will be needed in entering Kosovo.

A fraudulent letter scheme in Nigeria known as 'Fraud 419' has netted in excess of one billion dollars from victims since this worldwide scheme was first uncovered in 1989. Interpol has recently received information about the criminals contacting past victims posing as Nigerian government officials in what seems to be yet another scam to take money away from unassuming citizens. The government and the Interpol is hoping that by increasing peoples' awareness about the potential danger, it will be possible to steer clear of more crime.

On July 29, 1999, the People's Republic of China submitted a request to the Interpol relating to an arrest warrant against Mr. Li Hongzhi, founder of Alum Gong who is now living within the USA territories. Interpol has decided that, under Article 3 of the Organizations; they can not take any actions of intervention of a political character. After this request, the General Secretariat of the Interpol has informed China's branch of the Interpol that it can not use the Interpol to locate and arrest Li Hongzhi without information of any ordinary law crime he has committed.