The Scourge of the Red Notice

How some countries use Interpol to go after dissidents and debtors.

Pancho Campo is no stranger to international travel. A onetime Olympic tennis player, Campo spent much of his early career on the move. After he retired from the game, he went on to become a wine expert and established branches of his business in Florida and Spain, where he lives.

So when Campo arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in 2009, he was surprised to hear that an Interpol Red Notice had been issued for him for extradition to the United Arab Emirates.

“That’s when the nightmare started,” he said.

Interpol’s General Assembly at the end of last monthmade headlines when a senior Russian security official was nominated for president of the international police agency, sparking concerns that it could be co-opted by the Kremlin. Russia has been known to issue Red Notices through the Interpol system in pursuit of its political enemies abroad.

But while the Russian candidate lost out to one from South Korea, lawyers and others who interact with the agency say it’s increasingly plagued by other problems, including a lack of transparency and abuse of its rules by authoritarian regimes.

Campo’s case appears to highlight the way the UAE—which hosted Interpol’s General Assembly—uses the agency as its private international debt collection agency, according to Michelle Estlund, a lawyer whose practice specializes in Interpol defense work.

Red Notices issued by Interpol’s 194 member states are usually reserved for people suspected of committing serious crimes. But under the UAE’s sharia-influenced legal system, some foreigners who did business there have found themselves on Interpol’s wanted list for business disputes, bounced checks, or even credit card debt—things that in many countries do not carry criminal penalties.

There is no public information about how many Red Notices are issued by the UAE for these relatively minor matters. But one British-based group that helps people in this predicament says it is now seeing at least two cases a month.

Under the UAE’s credit system, customers are often asked to write a check for the value of any bank loan they take, which is then held as a security. If the loan is defaulted on, the bank can then cash the check to recover its money. But because the sum is often high,it’s not unusual for the check to bounce. The Gulf state of Qatar, which has a similar credit system, sentenced British businessman Jonathan Nash to 37 years imprisonment last year for a check that could not be covered.

“In the UAE, all you have to do is get sick and not be able to pay your mortgage bill,” Estlund said. “What grabs people’s attention about Interpol Red Notice cases is that it could be you, it could be me.”

Campo’s problems began in 2002, when he dissolved his event-planning business in Dubai, which had stopped being profitable in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. His Lebanese business partner, who had invested $500,000 in the company, filed a complaint with the authorities in the UAE, and the next year, Campo was tried in absentia and found guilty of commercial breach of trust. Campo said he was never informed that a case had been opened against him.