Not even one per cent of illegal global money gets recovered by enforcement agencies, concerned Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock said on the eve of the four-day 90th Interpol General Assembly starting in Delhi on Tuesday. The global cost of cybercrime alone is expected to reach 10.5 trillion US dollars by 2025, Stock said.

"Organised crime networks are making billions of dollars, and the fact that less than one per cent of global illicit financial flows are intercepted and recovered – or rather, nearly 99 per cent of stolen assets remain in criminal hands - should be of greater concern to everyone," Stock told reporters here. The CBI Special Director Praveen Sinha was also at the press conference.

Stock also stated that to gain a better view of the threats faced by law enforcement, the first Interpol Global Crime Trend Report was compiled and will be presented to members during the general assembly taking place in India after a gap of about 25 years. It was last held in 1997.

Talking of the global trend, the secretary general revealed that the most significant is the increasing influence of organised crime groups, both in the physical world with associated increased violence and the virtual world with cybercrime, causing a massive economic and social impact on governments, businesses and individuals worldwide.

Hospitals and businesses are held hostage by ransomware, and people’s life savings get stolen in romance scams, he narrated as he called for returning to the basics of policing, which is to follow the money.

"Interpol has developed its global stop-payment mechanism, the Anti-Money Laundering Rapid Response Protocol, which in the past 10 months alone has helped member countries recover more than 60 million dollars in criminal proceeds from cyber enabled fraud," he commented.

Online child abuse

Another disturbing aspect Interpol Secretary-General highlighted was the massive increase in online child sexual exploitation, which he stressed is backed by a hike in figures recorded by Global Crime Trend Report. "We know that cybercrime and online child abuse are significantly under reported, often because victims are ashamed or, in cases of fraud, embarrassed, which means that the figures we see are just the tip of the iceberg. This is why we have many resolutions at this General Assembly encouraging greater action by member countries to use Interpol resources in combating these crimes, he said.

Police around the world are overwhelmed with data, and too often, they cannot deal with the volume of cases – and here, Interpol is uniquely placed to provide the support they need, he stated.

Police can instantly check the International Child Sexual Exploitation global databases, altogether 19 of which contain 126 million records, including DNA profiles and facial recognition images. India is also accessing this date for criminal investigations.

He appreciated India for playing an extremely active role in a range of global operations coordinated by Interpol. For example, he stated that in the recent Operation Lionfish targeting drug trafficking, Indian authorities made the largest single seizure of heroin during the operation, intercepting 75kg of the drug.

On Red Notice which at times becomes a bone of contention, Stock explained that Interpol could not force any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of the global alert. "It is not for Interpol to judge the merit of a case or a decision taken by national courts – that is a sovereign matter. Our role is to assess if a request for a Red Notice is in line with our Constitution and Rules, he emphasised at the press meet.

PM Narendra Modi will address the General Assembly on the opening day of the session which will be attended by delegations from 195 Interpol member countries. The invitation has also gone to Pakistan to attend once a year meeting to take key decisions related to its functioning.

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