About Interpol

Interpol

Intergovernmental organization The International Criminal Police Organization - INTERPOL, commonly known as Interpol, is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. It is the world's largest international police organization.

Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France, with seven regional bureaus worldwide, and a National Central Bureau in all 196 member states.

INTERPOL's membership has grown steadily since its creation. From the original 20 founding members in 1923, there were 50 member countries by 1955 as the Organization rebuilt itself after the Second World War. This map shows the member countries as of September 1962.

INTERPOL has supported international action against organized crime for more than 100 years. For more than 100 years, police across the globe have been cooperating to prevent and fight crime. While some of the basic crimes remain unchanged over the years (murder, robbery) other crimes have followed technological, economic and sociological developments in our world (such as cybercrime and people smuggling).

Policing has also advanced in line with developments in technology. Until the 1980s, when our records were computerized, data was processed and analyzed manually. in 1935, we launched a dedicated radio network for sharing police information while today's secure web-based system allows police to check our databases in real-time from the frontline.

Yet the very first initiatives to discuss extradition procedures, identification techniques and record keeping are still at the heart of our role today. Locating fugitives remains a core activity, biometrics have replaced paper fingerprints and our databases contain millions of global records of criminal data. We began as the International Criminal Police Commission, created in 1923, and became the International Criminal Police Organization-INTERPOL in 1956.