On October 18-21, 2022, the 90th session of INTERPOL General Assembly was held in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi (Delhi). It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister (PM) of India Narendra Modi as part of India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations.
- INTERPOL stands for International Criminal Police Organization.
- The INTERPOL General Assembly meeting was held in India after a gap of about 25 years. It was last held in 1997.
- PM also released a commemorative postal stamp and commemorative coins of ₹100 denomination.
Participants:
It was attended by delegations from 195 Interpol member countries comprising ministers, police chiefs of countries, heads of national central bureaus and senior police officers.
- The session was focused on the future of policing, Policing today’s crimes, INTERPOL’s Global Crime Trends Report, Executive Committee Elections, Partnerships, Diversity, Workshops.
INTERPOL launches first Global Police Metaverse at Delhi conference
The INTERPOL launched the first ever Global Police Metaverse specifically designed for law enforcement agencies worldwide.
- This fully operational INTERPOL Metaverse allows registered users to tour a virtual replica of the Interpol General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France.
- Users can interact with officers via their avatars, and even take training courses in forensic investigation and other policing capabilities.
- Metaverse is a combination of two words, “meta” (which has its Greek origin and which means beyond or across) and “universe”. It is a virtual realm where physical, augmented, and virtual reality converge.
- The term “Metaverse” was first coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel – ‘Snow Crash’.
Key Points:
i.The INTERPOL Metaverse is provided through the INTERPOL Secure Cloud.
ii.The World Economic Forum (WEF) has partnered with the Interpol, Meta, Microsoft and others to define and govern the metaverse.
INTERPOL’s first-ever Global Crime Trend report 2022 released:
INTERPOL’s first-ever Global Crime Trend report 2022 was also released and presented to delegates. It highlights current and emerging crime threats at both the global and regional levels.
- It was prepared by using data from INTERPOL’s 195 member countries, databases and external sources.
Key Points:
i.As per the report, crime has increasingly moved online as the pace of digitalization has increased.
- 60% of respondents rank crimes such as money laundering, ransomware, phishing and online scams as high or very high threats.
- 70% of respondents expect crimes such as ransomware and phishing attacks to increase or significantly increase in the next three to five years.
- Money laundering was the number one crime threat in the INTERPOL report with 67 per cent ranking it ‘high’ or ‘very high’ followed by Ransomware at 66 percent.
ii.In Africa, phishing and online scams are the biggest current threat (83%) and the crime most likely to increase in the next three to five years (72%).
iii.In the Americas and Caribbean region, illicit firearms trafficking was the top crime threat (88%).
iv.Financial crime was considered the top crime threat in the Asia and the Pacific (APAC) regions.
v.In Europe, OCSEA (online child sexual exploitation and abuse) to increase in the next three to five years.
- The top three threats currently facing Europe are phishing and online scams (62%), money laundering (60%) and synthetic drug trafficking (57%)
vi.In the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, the biggest crime threat is the trafficking of precursor drugs.
Key Resolutions taken during the Assembly:
i.To address Financial and cyber crimes, delegates approved a resolution for greater action including the creation of an Expert Working group which will assess various proposals in relation to the exchange of financial information and the tracing and recovery of criminal assets.
ii.Delegates also approved a resolution for greater efforts to identify and investigate online child sexual abuse through the creation of specialized units and increased use of INTERPOL’s International Child Sexual Exploitation database.
iii.The General Assembly called for more effective use of the I-Familia database by member countries.
- I-Familia seeks to identify missing persons or unidentified human remains by using DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) samples from family members.
91st Interpol General Assembly to be held in Austria’s Vienna in 2023:
The 91st Interpol General Assembly will be held in Vienna, Austria, in 2023 where the international criminal police organization was officially created in 1923.
- It should be noted that in 2023, INTERPOL will celebrate 100 years since the founding of the International Criminal Police Commission, which then became INTERPOL in 1956.
Election of new members to the Executive Committee:
The General Assembly also elected the following three new Executive Committee members who will serve a three-year term.
- Peter De Buysscher of Belgium was elected as Vice President for Europe
- Alaa El Din Mohamed Abdalah Raga from Egypt and Anne-Marie Nainda from Namibia elected as Delegates for Africa.
About Interpol General Assembly:
The General Assembly is INTERPOL’s supreme governing body and comprises delegates appointed by the governments of our member countries.
It meets once a year and takes all the major decisions affecting general policy, the resources needed for international cooperation, working methods, finances and programmes of activities. These decisions are in the form of resolutions.
In March 2022, tt has launched the INTERPOL Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre (IFCACC) to provide a coordinated global response against the exponential growth in transnational financial crime.
Recent Related News:
i.On 17th August 2022, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah inaugurated a 2-day National Security Strategies (NSS) Conference 2022 in New Delhi, Delhi. The NSS Conference 2022 was attended by 600 officers from across India, physically and virtually. He also inaugurated the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) developed by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
ii.The first-of-its-kind database named- National Integrated Database on Arrested Narco offenders (NIDAAN) was made operational for the use by various central and State prosecution agencies tasked to enforce anti-drugs laws in India. It is part of the Narcotics Coordination Mechanism (NCORD) portal.
About International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL):
Secretary General– Jurgen Stock
President– Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Headquarters– Lyon, France
Established in – 1923
