INTERPOL Red Notices 2025 Statistics: Record Volume, Record Rejections on Political Grounds

INTERPOL has published its latest activity data for 2025, covering Red Notices, diffusions, and the full range of color-coded notices. For anyone working in this space, the numbers tell a clear story: volume is accelerating, the system is under strain, and the transparency gap remains wide open.

This article breaks down the 2025 statistics, compares them to previous years, and identifies the trends that matter for practitioners and applicants.

Red Notices Approach 20,000

INTERPOL published 19,568 Red Notices in 2025, up from 15,528 in 2024. That is a 26 percent increase in a single year. To put this in context: in 2018, the figure was 13,516. In 2020, it dropped to 10,776 during the pandemic. The post-pandemic recovery has been sharp and sustained, and 2025 marks the highest volume ever recorded.

As of 31 December 2025, there were 86,021 valid Red Notices in INTERPOL’s files, up from 77,689 a year earlier. The total number of valid notices across all types reached 141,082.

Wanted persons diffusions, which are circulated by NCBs directly to selected member countries rather than to all 196, totalled 10,123 in 2025, a slight decrease from 10,774 in 2024. Diffusions must meet the same legal requirements as Red Notices under the RPD, including compliance with Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution.

Rejections on Human Rights and Political Grounds Nearly Double

The most significant figure in the 2025 data is the number of Red Notices and diffusions refused or cancelled on the basis of Articles 2 and 3 of INTERPOL’s Constitution. Article 2 requires compliance with human rights standards. Article 3 prohibits INTERPOL from engaging in activities of a political, military, religious, or racial character.

In 2025, 558 Red Notices and diffusions were refused or cancelled under Articles 2 and 3, compared to 305 in 2024. That is an 83 percent increase. The upward trend is consistent and steep: the 2023 figure, as retroactively updated by INTERPOL, was 299.

This figure reflects the General Secretariat’s pre-publication compliance review, not CCF decisions. Before a Red Notice is published, INTERPOL’s legal teams assess the request against the Organization’s rules. A refusal at this stage means the notice never enters the system. A cancellation means it was published but subsequently found non-compliant.

The 83 percent rise in Article 2 and 3 refusals, set against a 26 percent rise in Red Notice volume, suggests that the compliance filter is catching more problematic requests. Whether this reflects better screening by INTERPOL, a greater proportion of abusive requests from certain member states, or both, is impossible to say from the published data alone. INTERPOL does not break these figures down by country.

The “Other” Category Remains a Blind Spot

INTERPOL’s published data includes a category for refusals classified as “Other.” In 2025, 1,992 Red Notices and diffusions were refused or cancelled for reasons categorized as “Other,” alongside the 558 refused under Articles 2 and 3. The total number of refusals across all categories was 2,550.

The “Other” category covers cases where, for example, the request did not meet the criteria of serious ordinary law crimes, or there was a lack of cooperation from the requesting country. It may also include technical deficiencies (incomplete data, missing judicial documents) and procedural failures (expired warrants, resolved cases).

In previous years, this category has consistently accounted for the majority of refusals. In 2024, it represented roughly 88 percent of all refusals. In 2025, that share dropped to 78 percent, as Article 2 and 3 refusals grew at a faster rate. The fact that nearly four in five refusals still fall outside the Article 2 and 3 framework raises questions about what these refusals actually involve, and whether some of them may involve human rights or political concerns that are classified under a broader heading for institutional reasons.

Without disaggregated data, no meaningful analysis is possible. This remains the single largest gap in INTERPOL’s transparency reporting.

Beyond Red Notices: Blue, Yellow, and Green

Red Notices dominate the public conversation, but INTERPOL’s notice system is broader. The 2025 figures for other notice types are as follows.

Blue Notices (requests for information on a person’s identity, location, or activities in relation to a criminal investigation): 3,325 published in 2025, down from 4,078 in 2024. Blue Notices are investigative tools, not arrest instruments, but they still flag an individual to law enforcement in every member country.

Yellow Notices (missing persons alerts): 3,474 published in 2025, compared to 3,345 in 2024. Yellow Notices are sometimes used in parental abduction cases, where the child is reported as “missing” by one parent while living with the other. Article 90 of the Rules on the Processing of Data requires that the subject be genuinely missing. Challenges to Yellow Notices on this basis have become more common.

Green Notices (warnings about persons considered a threat to public safety): 613 published in 2025, compared to 561 in 2024. Green Notices are the least discussed of the major notice types but carry their own risks, particularly for individuals flagged by authoritarian states as public safety threats on the basis of political activity.

The 2025 data also marks the first time INTERPOL has included the Silver Notice in its published statistics. The Silver Notice remains a pilot program, though the concept dates back to a 2015 General Assembly resolution. It took nearly a decade of working groups before the pilot was launched in January 2025, with the first notice published at the request of Italy. At the 93rd General Assembly in Marrakech in November 2025, the GA reviewed interim results and set a pathway toward permanent adoption by tasking the Expert Working Group to report on the full results at the 94th session. In its first year, 103 Silver Notices were published and 35 Silver Notice diffusions were circulated. Unlike Red Notices, the Silver Notice targets proceeds of crime rather than individuals, and it operates under its own legal framework. Given the reliance of financial institutions on INTERPOL alerts, and the risks of misuse that accompany any new INTERPOL instrument, the implications for individuals flagged through asset-tracing requests deserve close attention.

The Missing Piece: Country-Level Data

INTERPOL still does not publish country-level data on Red Notice requests, refusals, or cancellations. It does not disclose which states account for the highest volume of requests, which states have the highest refusal rates, and which states have been the subject of the most Article 2 and 3 interventions.

This matters. The aggregate numbers tell us that the system is growing and that the compliance filter is catching more problematic requests. They do not tell us where the problems are concentrated. Without country-level breakdowns, it is impossible to assess whether INTERPOL’s compliance framework is being applied uniformly, whether certain states are repeat offenders, or whether corrective measures are having any effect on the states that generate the most non-compliant requests.

Practitioners working in this space know from experience that certain requesting states account for a disproportionate share of politically motivated and human-rights-violating requests. The data would bear this out if it were published. The continued absence of country-level reporting is a policy choice, not a technical limitation.

What the 2025 Data Shows

The headline figures point in two directions simultaneously. On one hand, volume is at a record high and continuing to climb. The system is processing more requests, more notices, and more diffusions than at any point in its history. On the other hand, the compliance filter is working harder: refusals under Articles 2 and 3 rose 83 percent, outpacing the growth in volume by a wide margin.

For practitioners, the 2025 data reinforces what the caseload numbers already show: the volume of work before the CCF will continue to rise, the arguments will need to be sharper, and the procedural requirements (particularly under the new CCF Portal and Operating Rules) will need to be met with precision.

Charlie Magri is the founder of Otherside, a specialist law firm dedicated exclusively to INTERPOL and CCF matters. He is a former Legal Officer at the Secretariat to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files.