Red Notices are designed to immobilize a person. Anyone who is the subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice cannot travel without risking detention. She often has difficulty maintaining business relationships because of the outstanding notice. When the notice is about a financial crime, the subject has the additional worry that her financial institution will sever ties with her based on its own concerns with anti-money laundering compliance laws.

When a Red Notice subject successfully applies for the removal of the Red Notice, INTERPOL does advise all of its member countries of that decision, and all member countries are requested to update their databases to reflect the change.

However, the removal of the Red Notice is sometimes not the end of the fight for many individuals. Too often, people who have proven to INTERPOL that their cases are either not truly criminal, or are politically motivated, or do not even contain a sufficient level of information to sustain a criminal charge, wind up on financial risk lists improperly, based on outdated or inaccurate information.

Financial risk lists are published by companies such as World-Check, LexisNexis, RDC (Regulatory DataCorp), Bureau Van Dijk, and Dow Jones for use by their customers who seek to minimize the risk of dealing with illegal funds or the people who conduct illegal financial activity. Unfortunately, when the publishers of financial risk lists rely on inaccurate or outdated information, they negatively affect the ability of legitimate individuals and companies to conduct business, to maintain employment, and to safeguard their reputations.

In the next post, we’ll address what people can do when they find themselves on the wrong side of an INTERPOL-related financial risk list.

As always, thoughts and comments are welcomed.