7 ms·
Russia using Interpol's wanted list to target critics abroad, leak reveals
- bilekas 9mo ago> Pestrikov found he was named in a red diffusion after he fled Russia in June 2022 It doesn't say how he found out, I would imagine he's regularly checking online, he was stopped at a control check somewhere? Seems to me that most people wouldn't have a clue until they're being arrested. But again another scummy behaviour from the Russian government. It might as well just be prudent to ignore their requests altogether. Boy who cried wolf. Edit : it did indeed say how. I missed it. > After he fled to France, he was worried that the Kremlin might try to target him there, so he contacted Interpol
- JasonADrury 9mo agoYou can pay $500 online in cryptocurrency to find out if there are interpol notices regarding a person. It's a convenient feature of interpol being so... international. Such services are frequently advertised on forums like rutor
- bilekas 9mo agoWell Interpol will tell you directly so no need to fund criminal groups. https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Red-Notices/View-Red-Notices https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Red-Notices/...
- strken 9mo ago> The majority of Red Notices are restricted to law enforcement use only. > Extracts of Red Notices are published at the request of the member country concerned and where the public’s help may be needed to locate an individual or if the individual may pose a threat to public safety. So, no, only a minority of them are made public.
- JasonADrury 9mo agoBesides, you'd probably want to know about a blue notice.
- cestith 9mo agoI’d like to know if I’m the subject of any of the Interpol notices. That is, unless it’s a Black Notice and it’s correct. Then I couldn’t really care. Even that one, though, if my name’s attached and it’s wrong that seems really bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice
- bilekas 9mo agoAh I see, still is no excuse to find crime, only adding to your potential problems really.
- lovich 9mo agoI’ll just assume this is correct because I believe the Russian government has mastered the art of just lying when there are no consequences, but if I was being critical, this phrase is giving me pause for evaluating the conclusions. > The data is not complete…
- jongjong 9mo ago[flagged]
- baxtr 9mo agoIf multipolarity involves great powers sabotaging shared interests when convenient, how is it any different from the unipolar abuse being criticised?
- jongjong 9mo agoThe difference is that opposition brings balance. Any great power, unopposed, is bound to turn into tyranny sooner or later.
- baxtr 9mo agoOpposition brings balance only among great powers, and only when they see each other as equals. Institutions were meant to extend balance beyond great powers, to smaller states with no leverage. So if those institutions are weakened or weaponized, who exactly benefits, and how does that improve the overall condition of humanity?
- jongjong 9mo agoMy view is that they never brought any balance. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Global institutions, especially NGOs, wrecked havoc. My view is that the nexus of power is guaranteed to be corrupt. Inescapably so. It's just a number's game; in any game/competition with many participants, the winners who rise to the top will always be in the category of "the cheaters who didn't get caught". Given enough power, they can use that power to cover up their tracks and craft narratives to make themselves look good and their opponents look bad. So there's nothing worse than centralization. Anything which centralizes power is bound to be corrupt and harmful.
- baxtr 9mo agoIf corruption is an unavoidable property of power, centralization is not the core problem, scale is. Decentralized systems still concentrate power, they just do it informally, locally, without visibility or accountability. Eliminating institutions does not remove the nexus of power, it just relocates it to actors with fewer constraints and less scrutiny. If winners are always cheaters who did not get caught, then weakening shared rules only selects for better cheaters, not better outcomes. At least institutions create friction, records, and points of contestation. Without them, power does not disappear, it simply becomes cruder and harder to challenge. The claim that centralization is uniquely corrupt assumes fragmentation produces virtue. History suggests it mostly produces unchecked local coercion and chaos, not justice.
- preisschild 9mo agoCurrently in my country (Austria) there is a court process against an official who made register look-ups of critical journalists who live here and handed the address to FSB-Agents who later broke into this journalists apartment. The ruzzians are completely unscrupulous. https://www.reuters.com/world/austrian-ex-intelligence-accused-spying-russia-goes-trial-2026-01-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/austrian-ex-intelligence-accus...
- ljsprague 9mo agoDo we believe some countries' spy agencies are scrupulous?
- lazide 9mo agoMaybe one of the nearly powerless ones? Australia? Hmm, nope.
- preisschild 9mo agoWhich spy agencies go after journalists?
- pydry 9mo ago70% of the journalists murdered last year were murdered by the US's closest ally. It was the worst year for journalist killings in a long time.
- cestith 9mo agoI think people tend to have a range of scruples they expect. How someone is targeted is often far more lax on standards than who is targeted and for what reasons.
- joe_mamba 9mo ago> The ruzzians are completely unscrupulous. Wait a sec, isn't the Austrian intelligence officer to blame here for doing the spying on Russia's behalf? And Austrian politics in general have historically been very pro-Russia since the cold war, with Putin visiting the wedding of Austrian officials, and Austrian politicians getting jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after the end of their mandates. Also, Austrian Raiffeisen bank still has operations in Russia. So maybe Austria could have some introspection and drain the swamp of Russian assets instead of throwing all the blame on Russia as it has no agency in its internal politics and business tie with Russia.
- kgeist 9mo agoNot denying that Russia abuses Interpol, but I have doubts about this particular narrative that he was some kind of "government critic." From what I can find, he privatized a state corporation in the 90s for pennies (lots of very shady deals back then, usually facilitated by organized crime). From 2010-2020, I can find media reports about his legal problems with tax evasion. In 2021, there was a case where he threatened people with murder while holding a rifle. He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022, when he took 250 mln from the company's budget without consulting the board of directors and left Russia (and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal). I suspect he's part of the 90s mafia who's now on the Interpol list, which makes his life abroad questionable, so now he has to spin the narrative that it's a political case.
- derelicta 9mo agoI suppose our own politicians are so corrupt they see nothing wrong with such behavior and automatically consider such case as abusive.
- viktorcode 9mo agoAnd yet despite his alleged criminal activities Russian prosecutors have failed to present an evidence-backed case that would warrant the notice to Interpol. That is why it was cleared.
- pjc50 9mo agoAh, this is an OJ Simpson: looks extremely guilty, but because the police are lazy and incompetent they frame him rather than building an actual case.
- pydry 9mo agoYeah, the UK has a habit of giving a new home to Russian oligarchs. There are several in my area of London who live in opulent mansions (one looks very Trump-like) bought with soviet privatization wealth. Some of their houses: https://www.mylondon.news/news/property/london-mansions-owned-russian-oligarchs-23252864 https://www.mylondon.news/news/property/london-mansions-owne...
- KingMob 9mo agoI knew Carmen Sandiego was framed!
- goinghjuk 9mo agoanother thing they do, when one of their agents/criminal affiliates is arrested, they invent a serious crime he did in Russia and demand extradition a good example is the BTCe crypto exchange founder
- dvfjsdhgfv 9mo agoThis is one way. But one more popular is to force anyone doing serious business to do things that are formally against the law, but you can't function without them (like payments to some officers). In this way you make sure everyone is controlled and you can threaten them easily, no need to invent everything as it's already organized. And if they don't comply, the case is practically ready.
- rk06 9mo agoas an Indian that explains so much....
- rdtsc 9mo agoIf high profile enough they may find some excuse to arrest a US or EU citizen then “exchange” them.
- hexage1814 9mo agoBrazil's judicial dictatorship has been doing the same, sadly.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- sigmar 9mo agoAre you referring to the woman that was convicted for hacking and 'illegal coercion through the use of a firearm'? Or someone else? https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/08/29/italy-keeps-zambelli-in-custody-as-brazil-awaits-extradition-ruling/ https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/08/29/italy-keeps-zambe...
- mvdwoord 9mo agoThe Dutch Tax Authority also does this.
- pjc50 9mo ago[citation needed]
- mvdwoord 9mo agoI see my comment downvoted, and you asking for a citation. I have seen this happen to someone I know very well. And it was quite obvious this is a tactic which they do not hesitate to use. The maximum sentence for certain tax crimes has been increased to match the minimum required for (ab-)using the interpol red notice system. Make of it what you will, but if you want to read up on (willingly and consciously) unlawful behavior at the Dutch Tax Authority in general, I welcome you to investigate the "Toeslagenaffaire" of the past few years. Even today an article came out which shows a WOO (FOIA) request that has them admit more illegal acts, on top of everything else they did. Luckily most people will focus on reading about the new government which will be announced today. Or speak to any of the few criminal tax attorneys in NL.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 9mo agoCouldn't it be merely a criminal claiming to be a political victim to avoid extradition? Never heard the name here at all, let alone in a political context. I myself know from close hearsay a fellow who happily traded grain until 2022 when he left for US with $50m of a bank's money in his pocket. A few people in the bank lost their jobs as a result. Those people would certainly welcome that critic back.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoI guess he could be, but Interpol themselves seems to disagree with that since they canceled the request after looking into it deeper: > After Pestrikov had spent almost two years on the wanted list, the CCF ruled that his case was predominantly political. He showed us CCF documents that said the information Russia had provided was "generic and formulaic" and there had been an "inadequate explanation" of the alleged crime. Interpol cancelled the request for Pestrikov's detention.
- pydry 9mo agoAs an oligarch who acquired a mining company on the cheap during the post soviet gangster 90s he doesnt exactly fit the profile of a beleagured peace activist. The way that he is described by the BBC as a businessman (not an oligarch) also suggests that he was taken off the list for political reasons. London collects activist Russian oligarchs the same way Washington collects activist ex-Iranian monarchy.
- drysine 9mo agoCan't the CCF's decision be "predominantly political"? That paragraph you quoted is "generic and formulaic" and is an "inadequate explanation".
- embedding-shape 9mo agoYes, you either put your trust with CCF, BBC and this man, or Russia, both sides could claim the same about the other. I don't have any experience with CCF, I do trust BBC, I don't trust that man, so in the end I trust that what BBC writes is closer to the truth.
- JohnnyLarue 9mo ago[dead]
- BeetleB 9mo agoThey make a quick mention of Turkey. Turkey probably perfected this technique - they've been abusing Interpol this way for years. Many people (e.g. Americans) who have openly criticized Turkey (blog post, Twitter, etc) have found themselves on the Interpol list and in trouble when traveling abroad. https://www.justsecurity.org/87260/after-spotlight-on-red-notices-turkey-is-abusing-another-interpol-mechanism/ https://www.justsecurity.org/87260/after-spotlight-on-red-no... https://www.csce.gov/statements/authoritarian-abuse-interpol/ https://www.csce.gov/statements/authoritarian-abuse-interpol... https://stockholmcf.org/turkey-among-top-abusers-of-interpols-notice-system-uk-parliament-report-says/ https://stockholmcf.org/turkey-among-top-abusers-of-interpol...
- PearlRiver 9mo agoTurkey is hilarious. It is run by a conservative Islam dictator but their tourism advertising portrays alcohol and women in bikinis.
- tim333 9mo agoTurkey is quite tolerant - there are quite a lot of women in bikinis and alcohol in the tourist resorts in the south. The majority of the locals don't do that though.
- expedition32 9mo agoIt's more that Erdogan's Islam campaign has completely and utterly failed. Istanbul stays Istanbul.
- ivanstepanovftw 9mo agoThey target Russians, so this is fine.