The short answer. INTERPOL will not tell you: it publishes totals, not countries. The only country-by-country figures come from the Interpol Files, internal data leaked by a whistleblower to the BBC World Service and Disclose and published in January 2026. As of September 2024 Russia had the most active Red Notices, 4,817, then Peru with 4,457 and Tajikistan with 3,493 — and fewer than one in ten of some 86,000 active notices were public.
What the official numbers show
INTERPOL’s own statistics are aggregates. In 2025 it published 19,568 Red Notices and refused or cancelled 2,550 requests, 558 of them on human-rights or political grounds; the Commission found 60 per cent of the deletion requests it decided in 2024 non-compliant. None of that is broken down by country, and the leaked ranking is one month’s snapshot from files the journalists said were incomplete. Volume is not misuse: a large country with a large caseload issues many lawful notices.
What the leak added
The leaked complaints list told a different story. Over eleven years, more complaints to the Commission concerned Russia than any other country — three times as many as the next, Turkey — and in a decade at least 700 people wanted by Russia complained, with at least 400 having their notices or diffusions overturned, more than for any other state. Internal reports seen by the BBC showed roughly 90 per cent of Russian requests still passing initial checks in 2024 while the Commission overturned about half of those complained about; one described Russia seeking red diffusions against judges and a prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which INTERPOL rejected. Amnesty International called the pattern “a grave institutional failure”.
What INTERPOL can do about a country
The rules allow pressure on a bureau, not only on a notice. INTERPOL’s compliance page says a country that “continually requests” non-compliant notices may face interim or corrective measures: enhanced review of everything it sends, or partial or full suspension of its processing rights, with long-term suspension needing the Executive Committee’s approval. Such measures have been applied to different bureaus on different occasions since 2012. After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine INTERPOL added checks on Russian requests; the whistleblower told the BBC some were quietly dropped in 2025, which INTERPOL declined to discuss.
What it means for your request
A country’s record is evidence. The Repository of Practice lists “the identity of the source of data” among the elements weighed under Articles 2 and 3, and says the requesting country’s record of compliance counts — not as an automatic bar, but in assessing the probability of a violation. For a request built on Article 2 or Article 3, the pattern around your case belongs in the file; the decisions on What Works show how often it carries.
Related
- How many Red Notices get refused or deleted?
- What does Fair Trials think of INTERPOL?
- Can a country trace you through INTERPOL without issuing any notice at all?
- BBC World Service and Disclose, 26 January 2026 — Russia using Interpol's wanted list to target critics abroad, leak reveals — bbc.com
- JURIST, 27 January 2026 — Interpol leaked files reveal states abuse red notices to target dissidents — jurist.org
- OCCRP, 29 January 2026 — Repressive states misuse Interpol Red Notices to pursue political targets: report — occrp.org
- Amnesty International, 26 January 2026 — Global: misuse of Interpol red notices to target dissidents a grave institutional failure — amnesty.org
- INTERPOL — About Notices and Compliance and review: Notices and Diffusions statistics 2025, and interim and corrective measures against NCBs — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — Repository of Practice on Articles 2 and 3, third edition, November 2024, section 2.1.5 — interpol.int
- CCF Annual Activity Report 2024, paragraphs 61 to 62 — interpol.int
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