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INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, provides communications, intelligence, and database assistance between law enforcement agencies across the globe. Helping police catch fugitives who flee abroad to escape prosecution has always been at the core of the organization's mission. More recently, the France-based crime-busting body has created an initiative called Operation Identify Me to help identify female victims of homicide. But how exactly was this world-renowned organization conceived, and what is its responsibilities?

Click through for a fascinating glimpse into the wide-ranging role of INTERPOL.

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The disappearance in the early 1990s of a British woman in Belgium remained a mystery until an initiative called Operation Identify Me helped identify her remains via a tattoo. The campaign was launched in May 2023 by Interpol to identify 22 unidentified women who were found deceased in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.

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In 2024, the cold-case campaign was expanded to include France, Italy, and Spain. The Identify Me website currently features the details of 46 unidentified women, most of whom were murdered.

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"Our goal is simple," remarked Interpol's secretary general Jürgen Stock. "We want to identify the deceased women, bring answers to families, and deliver justice to the victims. But we can't do it alone. That is why we are appealing to the public. Even the smallest piece of information can be vital."

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The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) is an intergovernmental organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control.

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Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France. It's the only police organization that spans the entire globe, with seven regional bureaus worldwide, and a National Central Bureau in all 196 member states.

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Interpol was created in 1923 from an idea originally conceived at the first International Criminal Police Congress held in Monaco in 1914. After the First World War, the proposal was revisited during the second International Criminal Police Congress in Vienna, Austria.

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Vienna police chief Johannes Schober (1874–1932) became the founding president of Interpol, then known as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC).

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In 1938, following the Anschluss (the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich), the Nazis assumed control of the ICPC.

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Under the Nazi regime, the ICPC headquarters were moved to Berlin. From 1938 to 1945, the presidents of the commission included SS members Otto Steinhäusl, Reinhard Heydrich (pictured), Arthur Nebe, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Most member states withdrew their support during this period.

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In 1946, the organization relocated to Paris. The following year the first Red Notice was issued for a Russian man wanted for murdering a policeman.

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Interpol notices are international requests for cooperation or alerts allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information. There are eight types of notices, seven of which are color-coded by their function: red, blue, green, yellow, black, orange, and purple. The red notice is the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant currently used by the organization. An eighth special notice is issued at the request of the United Nations Security Council. Pictured is the Red Notice issued for British criminal Ronnie Biggs, who participated in the Great Train Robbery.

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In 1956 the commission was renamed the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). In 1966, Interpol relocated to Saint-Cloud (pictured), a Parisian suburb.

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It was during the early 1980s that the organization began fine-tuning its criminal intelligence analysis. The processing of personal data—such as names and fingerprints—was established as a key activity.

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On May 16, 1986, the Interpol HQ in Saint-Cloud was attacked by the French far-left extremist group known as Action Directe. A policeman who had been on duty was injured, and the building suffered extensive damage.

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In the wake of the bombing, Interpol again relocated, this time to Lyon, its current home since 1989. The organization's working languages are French, English, and Spanish. Arabic was formally adopted as the fourth official language in 1999.

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Interpol agents have no powers of arrest. Instead, the organization functions as a pivotal nexus for global law enforcement agencies, focusing on three major areas of transnational crime: terrorism, cybercrime, and organized crime.

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Departments within the organization include an analytical criminal intelligence unit, automatic fingerprint identification system, a national DNA database, and a secure global police communications system, established after the September 11 terrorist attacks. A Command and Coordination Centre was also set up after 9/11.

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Interpol's broad mandate covers virtually every kind of crime, including crimes against humanity, drug trafficking and production, political corruption, intellectual property infringement, and white-collar crime, for example, forgery and counterfeiting (pictured).

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Over the decades, Interpol has been involved in bringing to justice some of the world's most audacious, notorious, and violent criminals. In the 1970s, for example, the organization was instrumental in the apprehension of serial killer Charles Sobhraj. Known as "The Serpent," Sobhraj stole the identities of his victims and used them to elude law enforcement agencies across Europe and Southeast Asia.

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In 1978, Ira Einhorn, the so-called "Unicorn Killer," skipped bail after being charged by police of killing his ex-girlfriend in Philadelphia. Einhorn fled to Europe and evaded capture for 20 years before Interpol tracked him down to the small French village of Champagne-Mouton, where he was arrested by French police.

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Monet's famous 'Impression, Sunrise,' a painting that inspired the Impressionist movement, was stolen at gun point from the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris in 1985. Interpol tracked the thieves to Japan, where the perpetrators, Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun, together with a yakuza gangster named Shuinichi Fujikuma, were arrested. The painting was eventually recovered in 1990.

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A modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, bank robbers Nova Guthrie and Craig Pritchert at one point were listed on the FBI's most wanted list. In a crime spree that took the couple across western America in the 1990s, Guthrie and Pritchert used their ill-gotten gains to live it up in tropical bolt-holes, places that included Belize. The pair were eventually arrested in Cape Town, South Africa, where Interpol had pinpointed the partners in crime. They were actually identified by a sharp-eyed member of the public who immediately informed local law enforcement.

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Also in the 1990s, Interpol followed British smuggler Jonathan Tokeley-Parry as he illegally moved more than 3,000 pieces of Egyptian antiquities out of Egypt by disguising them as reproductions. He was eventually caught and sentenced in 1997 to six years' imprisonment.

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Interpol issued a Red Notice for Pablo Escobar in 1989, but the notorious Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and founder of the Medellín Cartel evaded law enforcement for another four years before his death on December 2, 1993. His demise ended a 16-month search effort.

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Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes was known as the "Lord of the Skies" because of the large fleet of jets he used to transport drugs. Escaping capture in 1993, Fuentes went on the run, pursued surreptitiously by Interpol agents. In an effort to disguise his appearance, the fugitive underwent extensive plastic surgery in 1997, but died during the operation.

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Arrested in Portugal in early 2000 on suspicion of murdering at least three women in France, Sid Ahmed Rezala had used trains to evade capture before ending up in Barreiro, near Lisbon. Interpol had been monitoring his movements and tipped off police when he made a phone call to his girlfriend from a Lisbon callbox. Rezala was promptly arrested but later took his own life while detained in prison.

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Interpol provided intelligence on wanted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić that led to his arrest on May 26, 2011, by Serbian special police and members of the Security Information Agency and War Crimes Prosecutor's Office agents. Mladić is currently serving life in prison in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

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Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11 terrorists attacks in the United States, was the subject of an Interpol-United Nations Security Council Special Notice before his death on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

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Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, former drug lord and Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, become the subject of an Interpol international wanted persons notice before he was jailed for life in the United States on July 17, 2019.

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Interpol's Integrated Border Management Task Force played a significant role in the July 2022 apprehension of Nini Johana Usuga, sister of jailed drug lord Dairo Antonio Usuga, the former leader of Clan del Golfo, currently Colombia's largest drug cartel. She's pictured here escorted by Interpol police officers in Bogota before being extradited to the United States.

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Dubbed the "Brazilian Pablo Escobar," drug lord Sergio Roberto de Carvalho, a former military police officer, was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice before his arrest in Budapest in 2022. Wanted for drug trafficking, money laundering, document fraud, and homicide, and with strong links to organized crime, de Carvalho was apprehended in cooperation with the organization's Fugitive Investigative Support unit, which facilitated information exchange with law enforcement agencies across three continents. He's now serving time in a prison in Belgium.

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Another subject of an Interpol-United Nations Security Council Special Notice but currently at large, Indian mob boss, drug lord, and terrorist Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar is wanted in connection with everything from terrorist financing to organized crime to drug trafficking. Dawood is widely believed to have masterminded the March 1993 bombings in Bombay.

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Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony is the founder of the Lord's Resistance Army and the subject of the first Interpol wanted persons Red Notice issued on behalf of the International Criminal Court. For 20 years Kony terrorized Uganda and neighboring countries. He's responsible for the deaths of thousands but remains at large.

Sources: (INTERPOL) (Britannica) (Euronews) (BBC) (The Guardian)