We are a group of Interpol lawyers providing specialized services to people from all over the world.
We have over 16 years of experience handling Interpol and extradition cases.
Thousands of people from all over the world visit our site and write to us because they want to know if they are listed with Interpol.
We conduct the verification for them, since as an international law firm, we have the tools and experience to handle Interpol issues.
We conduct a formal investigation with Interpol and send the response to our clients.
Once we have the results, we advise each of them with recommendations for their case, regardless of the situation.
The reality of these types of cases is that most people fail to complete the check and are detained in various locations, primarily at airports in different countries.
One of the most uncomfortable moments a person can experience is being detained at an airport and told they have an Interpol red notice.
From that very moment on, the person lives an anguishing and desperate experience full of doubts and uncertainty.
Being in a foreign country and going through airport controls, specifically in the immigration area, where the agent checks your passport and verifies it with the system and shows that you have an alert.
This is where the whole process begins. The agent confirms with Interpol, and if it’s positive, he immediately notifies the airport’s immigration director, who then sends a notification to the Foreign Ministry. The latter then contacts the embassy of the detained person so that they can issue a note to the International Affairs Prosecutor’s Office.
All of this is a coordinated and collaborative process that authorities from different countries carry out every day when they have someone with an Interpol red notice.
For a lawyer who handles the subject like we do, time is of the essence, as is the procedure used by the authorities regarding extradition issues.
A poor arrest procedure involving illegal action will result in liability for the authority or authorities who committed it, and they will also be held accountable for abuse of authority before the respective courts.
For someone who has a red notice and doesn’t know it, the consequences of not checking can be truly catastrophic.
If you are at an airport in another country and are told that you do indeed have an Interpol red notice, it would lead to the person’s arrest.
Aside from the unpleasantness of being detained in another country, it must be a rather difficult and complicated situation.
The problem isn’t the detention at the airport; the complicated part comes after the person leaves the airport. They will be taken to a prison in a foreign country and then taken to a hearing. During this hearing, also called a presentation control hearing, three judges will read them their rights, inform them that they have an extradition request, and tell them the country requesting them and the charges they face in that country.
The person will arrive at the hearing handcuffed from head to toe.
Three judges will give the Prosecutor’s Office the opportunity to intervene.
The prosecution will read out the details of the extradition request, along with the general background of the case.
At the end of the prosecution’s presentation, the judges will ask a question to the person who is the lead speaker in the audience.
If you wish to travel to the country requesting your extradition with abbreviated or rapid extradition, or if you wish to face extradition proceedings.
Whatever the answer, and even if the person sought to leave through abbreviated extradition, they will spend at least two months detained in that foreign country, because extradition processes require a lot of verification and time, as several government agencies work together.
If the person wishes to face extradition proceedings, they will spend at least 5 to 6 months in detention in the foreign country, and the decision on whether or not to extradite them will fall to three magistrates or judges.
We’re talking about that detention being held in a main prison in that country.
While the judges decide whether to grant extradition or favor the accused, arguing that extradition would not be appropriate.
All of this would have been avoided if the person had conducted an Interpol check with a law firm like ours that specializes in the subject.
We don’t advocate for anyone to become a fugitive. We’re making that clear.
It is extremely important for a person to know in advance that they have an Interpol alert, as they would be mentally and physically prepared for that difficult test and thus be able to face the process in the country that requires it more calmly.
This is not to say that facing extradition proceedings is a bad thing, because we, for example, have won several of these cases.
If a person faces extradition proceedings and lacks a strong defense, they would face two separate proceedings in two different countries, which would lead to emotional and physical strain.
One of the things that helps is that the time detained in another country is worth two, and when this benefit arrives, they should apply it.
If a person has received an Interpol alert but has already served their sentence in their home country and wishes to travel but is unsure whether they are still on the alert, they can also contact us.
They say a cautious man is worth two, and precisely many cases of airport arrests have been due to alerts that have not been lifted even after the sentence has been served.
A simple check-in with us can save you time and prevent a problem.
If you have already served your sentence in your country and would like to remove the Interpol alert, we also offer that service.
You can send us an email or call us and tell us your story. We’ll respond with an email containing all the details we need to remove the alert. Removing the alert can take between two and three months.
How things began
As true pioneers in the field of extraditions and Interpol.
As one of the lawyers in our country who has possibly handled the most extradition cases, we know the story from its beginning.
We know where all the efforts countries have made in international cooperation over the years come from.
To understand the essence, you have to understand where all this comes from.
To talk about extradition and Interpol, we must first talk about international treaties.
They are a very old concept, dating back to the Middle Ages and known as binding agreements between states. Since ancient times, states have had an interest in maintaining this international cooperation.
By the 1960s, a new group of international treaties was formally established.
The latter was created with the aim of combating international drug trafficking.
International treaties were given priority, placing them above the national laws of each country.
We’re talking about a historic event created in 1961 through the Single Convention on Narcotics, which served to counteract the marijuana drug trafficking that had existed in the United States since the 1920s.
The governments of different countries have been addressing these issues with this same priority over the years, and it was of great help in combating other types of drugs, such as cocaine, when its smuggling became rampant in the 1980s and 1990s.
Since then, these treaties have been used and have been given great importance in matters of international security.
Let’s remember that the Mafia has existed since long before the 1960s. There were even Italian mafia families that operated in the United States from 1910 to 1951, a time when their activities obviously did not yet include drug trafficking.
They operated other types of illicit activities, such as illegal gambling, betting, casinos, loans with exaggerated interest rates, and extortion, among others.
Although international treaties were created before Interpol, they have always been closely linked.
Throughout history, this organization has served as a liaison for the capture of fugitives who have committed various types of serious crimes.
Interpol focuses on transnational crimes, that is, those involving several countries.
Among the crimes that Interpol sees are the following:
This is possibly one of the crimes that meets all the characteristics of a transnational crime and is related to international fraud.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in all types of fraud, especially online.
It’s shocking how these types of fraudulent companies continue to scam people.
They sell themselves as real companies, offering highly profitable commodity investment advisors, and swindle millions of dollars from the unwary.
There are two Central American countries that are widely used for this purpose.
Which are Costa Rica and Panama.
Criminals from all over the world open companies in these countries to operate their fraudulent businesses from there.
The number of cases of people who have fallen victim to scams from these types of companies is alarming.
As are the millions of dollars that these criminal groups make.
They create a modern and very good-looking website.
They present themselves as investment advisors in raw materials.
That’s usually where the first lie lies.
Because it is very difficult to obtain an investment advisor license in countries like Panama, a long series of requirements must be met, since the entity that approves this license is aware that this type of activity lends itself to fraud.
A person wishing to invest in this type of company should first contact a lawyer to verify whether the company is licensed to operate as a commodity investment advisor.
A simple query like that can save a person from losing a lot of money.
Criminals convince their victims to make high-yield investments. These are usually large sums of money, sometimes millions. They create a fictitious account on their website, where people can see the amount invested.
They continue to urge people to keep investing their money even if the account is going up.
After the victim has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, and no longer wants to deposit their own money but rather the money they’ve earned and that appears in the system. From that very moment, a whole horror story begins for the person. Suspicions, doubts, and questions begin.
The most distressing and desperate moment is when the victim tries to withdraw all their money from the system and realizes they can’t.
After several attempts, he contacts the scammer, who in this case is his worst enemy, and asks why he hasn’t been able to withdraw his money.
This raises red flags for the criminal, who knows exactly what to do if the person finds out.
The atmosphere becomes very tense and unfortunate.
Usually, the victim confronts his tormentor, the con man. The latter cynically responds in the cruelest way possible.
It usually tells you that the person didn’t make the investment in time, it took too long, and that’s why they lost everything.
It is at that moment that the person fully realizes that he has been a victim of fraud.
Contact a lawyer and try to file a complaint.
But the emotional impact and disappointment are very great.
Can’t believe he’s been scammed.
Something happens there:
The scammer, who is most likely a foreigner operating and hiding from another country
Some of the nationalities of the scammers we have seen most over the years are the following:
North American occupying the first place, Peruvian, Costa Rican, Mexican, Pakistani, Indian, French, United Kingdom, and German, among others.
Once the scammer has received these large sums of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in the Panamanian company’s bank account, they begin the process of diverting the money.
He begins diverting funds to other bank accounts in other countries, exacerbating the crime because he is using multiple countries to commit crimes. From the moment he uses multiple countries, he commits a serious crime prosecuted by Interpol and, as previously mentioned, known as a transnational crime.
In those other countries where he has diverted the money, he also begins to make investments, buying properties and then selling them, which is known as money laundering.
It’s important for fraud victims to have an experienced attorney who can recognize all these crimes and terms so they can file a criminal complaint based on what happened so the criminals can’t get away with it.
As we stated before, our country is used by many criminals from other countries to commit international fraud. We have seen this many times over the years. We have the experience and knowledge to advise our clients when it comes to these types of crimes.
We have presented an example of how international fraud cases have all the elements together, and we have demonstrated how they qualify perfectly to be referred to Interpol and end in extradition.
These elements are as follows:
Another of the crimes that Interpol sees is the following:
It has to do with crimes committed over the internet. It’s possibly one of the toughest battles waged by different countries in conjunction with Interpol. Because the number of criminals and criminal organizations involved in cybercrime is overwhelming.
Major operations have been carried out to capture these criminals.
Just last year, a four-member Nigerian gang was extradited to the United States; their leader was being sought by the FBI.
These four Nigerians had defrauded a group of companies of more than $6 million.
Through corporate emails, they managed to access the company’s private communications and sent emails posing as senior company employees. They ultimately managed to secure the money transfers from their accounts. This is undoubtedly the stuff of Netflix. Ultimately, these four criminals were extradited to the United States and sentenced there to between 72 and 96 months in prison.
One of the largest cybercrime operations in Africa in Interpol’s history is Operation Serengeti. The operation involved corporate emails, and the group was charged with extortion and fraud.
In this operation, more than 1,000 suspects were arrested in total, and thousands of pieces of evidence were found linking them to those responsible.
This occurred in a total of 19 African countries and represented a severe blow to cybercrime and a major step forward in preventing the normalization of this type of illegal activity.
The damage caused by these Nigerian cybercriminals is significant; the country suffers losses of $500 million each year alone.
Nigerians aren’t the only ones in the world who have turned to cybercrime; the Russians are there too.
Interpol’s cybercrime operations against Russian criminals have also been quite significant.
Interpol has dismantled many thousands of malicious IP addresses originating from these criminals.
The number of addresses that have been in circulation is significant; for example, sometimes more than 20,000 are taken out of circulation per operation, striking decisive and authoritative blows against these criminal groups.
One of the most historic heists in cybercrime history was carried out by Russians, who committed a heist against more than 100 banks totaling $880 million in what became known as the heist of the century.
It is a group of hackers led by Russians and in which Chinese and Ukrainians were also involved.
These criminals allegedly committed this crime and managed to go unnoticed for a period of two years until the first banks finally noticed and they were discovered.
It was truly impressive, and there are no records of such a large-scale bank robbery before this one.
The name of this criminal group was Carbanak.
The impressive thing is that they weren’t robbing customers but rather the banks themselves.
Because of this and other major bank robberies perpetrated by hackers, we can understand why cybercrime occupies a prominent place and is highly regarded among Interpol’s crimes.
Combating cybercrime in Asia is a major challenge. China, along with Nigeria and Russia, is the country with the most cybercriminal organizations of this type in the world.
This has been the reality for many years, but Asian governments and Interpol are relentless and are investing significant efforts to try to eradicate this major problem.
Proof of this is that just two weeks ago, Operation Secure, a fairly large and complex operation that has been developed in the first months since 2025 and that meets the following characteristics:
With this number of victims from a single operation, we realize the magnitude of the problem in Asian countries and what people have to live with.
What you experience there is day-to-day; it’s a reality that can’t be hidden.
In large, populated countries, this is seen daily.
Of course, we can’t leave out an operation that also involves the essence of cybercrime, which we’ll discuss later. It’s the iconic story, Interpol’s biggest, and a very special story for us because of everything it represented and everything that happened in Asia, more specifically in India. In no other Interpol operation were more websites destroyed than in Operation Pangea. There’s probably no other book published on Amazon like the one we wrote that talks about Operation Pangea, but we’ll talk about that later.
It includes several crimes, including drug trafficking, arms trafficking, armed robbery, various types of counterfeiting, and money laundering.
Interpol’s record is held by Operation Lionfish Hurricane, a 2024 operation with historic results, including
Interpol’s record for the largest number of firearms seized in Central and South America was held by Operation Trigger IX. Among the historic results are
Latin American countries are very interested in this issue, trying to reduce homicide rates in their respective countries. Policies for legalizing guns are quite complex. In some Latin American countries, there are many restrictions, while in others, gun imports are completely prohibited.
They create internal policies to guarantee security. The problem is that the black market and illegal arms trafficking have always existed.
It is precisely for these latter reasons that efforts between the government and Interpol are being created.
Regarding this crime, Interpol has several functions, the main ones being prevention and combating it.
One of the terrorist attacks that had the greatest impact on the world, both in terms of its nature and the number of victims, was undoubtedly the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Several of these terrorists were arrested thanks to lists issued by Interpol that included those responsible for this attack.
Pakistan is one of the 5 most populous countries in the world, with more than 240 million people.
One of the biggest problems facing Pakistan is education, where more than 26 million children do not attend school.
This brings with it a host of social problems both in the country and around the world, as many of the repercussions in this country have had international reach.
For example, India throughout history has had a constant struggle over issues of terrorist groups from Pakistan.
Many of these terrorist groups are formed in Pakistan.
They even recruit people from other countries, where they convince them that everything they are doing is for a purpose; they involve God, turning this into a type of religious sect.
The proof of this is that the leader and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who has been detained for more than 24 years, is of Pakistani origin, and his name is
Thanks to lists issued by various governments and Interpol, other terrorists were captured, such as al-Alwi, who was originally from Yemen but was captured in Pakistan, very close to the Afghan border, in late 2001.
Here we see how another individual of another nationality remained faithful to the beliefs of this terrorist group.
Some of the people who have committed very serious crimes and have been issued alerts or have appeared on Interpol’s lists are people with some psychological issue. For example: It has been confirmed that many criminals maintain a similar pattern of behavior. As children, they were diagnosed with a condition such as very severe ADHD and borderline autism. Many grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when very little was known about this condition, and there was no treatment for it. Today, everything has changed, and there are many advances for children, especially those discovered by functional medicine doctors in the United States. They reverse this condition in incredible ways with special diets and herbal supplements.
In the case of terrorists, these cult-like groups expose recruits to recordings that are repeated over and over again, having a profound psychological impact on them.
From listening to these recordings so much, many of them are songs.
They manage to subdue these new followers to their religion, which is nothing more than a sect, through manipulation and mind control.
They convince them that everything is for a purpose, and in this case the purpose is Allah, according to them.
That’s why we believe that there is always a psychological issue involved in these matters.
It all starts in the mind, and it is precisely the mind that plays a role in terrorist acts.
Many of these terrorist groups recruit children and young people, who are the most likely to fall for them.
In the case of Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York, he is currently 61 years old and in prison. He has been in prison since he was 36, spending more than a third of his life in prison.
Like him, other terrorists who were involved with him have been detained for the same period of time.
As we stated earlier, Interpol’s terrorist alerts are important, but it was precisely the lists where they were distributed, along with their images, that were key to the capture of the vast majority of these terrorists. Once they committed the crime, they tried to hide but were ultimately captured.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is currently detained in a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with 39 other terrorists. These individuals have complained over the past few years that their human rights have been violated there. They have launched campaigns targeting the United States government to ensure that he receives a fair trial. It is important to mention that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to having participated in the terrorist acts; in some ways, he himself has acknowledged that he was part of that event.
We don’t know for sure if the number of years he’s been detained has changed his mentality. But we do know that a person’s mentality doesn’t change overnight. It’s precisely time and what that person experiences over the years.
The truth is that these terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people, all innocent victims who had absolutely nothing to do with these events. This was one of the terrorist acts that most shocked the world.
Of the recent major terrorist attacks in history, the Islamic State has been involved in at least one. As we all know, it’s an organization that recruits people from different countries.
Interpol’s latest operation in several African countries resulted in the capture of 37 suspected members of the Islamic State. This was all possible thanks to the cooperation between the various countries, Interpol, and Afripol.
Each country conducted internal research work, which was essential for all of this work to be developed jointly.
One of the main reasons for this operation was to combat terrorism.
Bombs and different types of firearms were found.
The operation also targeted other types of crimes besides terrorism and resulted in the capture of murderers and fraudsters and a number of criminals and criminal organizations that were dismantled.
There is a difference between these two, but it is possible that they are both related.
Human trafficking for labor purposes is something that has been going on throughout humanity’s history, going back thousands of years.
One of the largest construction works in the world, and built more than 100 years ago, the Panama Canal was no exception.
According to history, there was complete slavery before the construction of the canal and at the beginning of it, with the construction by the French.
The latter brought Chinese in their attempt to build, but everything went wrong.
Many people interested in history have been curious to know if Chinese people arrived as slaves in any country in the Americas, and if there was a country where this happened, it was Panama.
The construction of the Panama Canal during the French attempt at construction was marked by inhumane treatment of the Chinese. Around 5,000 Chinese were brought in, working in inhumane and unfavorable conditions. In addition, the large number of mosquitoes from the canal’s jungle areas brought with them diseases and deaths for the Chinese, some of these being yellow fever.
In the end, the French failed to build the canal due to economic and financing issues.
In their early years there was also complete slavery. The Americans, knowing what had happened to the Chinese who were getting sick and dying, began to bring in Black Antilleans who began as slaves.
After the first few years, conditions improved a little, and the Blacks were paid some money, but it was very little considering the difficult work they were exposed to.
Black workers earned wages of between $12 and $15 a month, while white workers earned up to $600 a month, leaving a significant gap between what whites and Blacks earned.
Nowadays, human trafficking for labor exploitation is a reality.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Türkiye, and Afghanistan.
But there are too many places where this happens, being almost the vast majority of countries in the world.
This is a modern form of exploitation and a problem in our countries that seems never-ending.
It’s a reality we live in; the problem is that victims often don’t know the laws of the country they’re in.
One of these countries is Canada.
Not only Latinos, but also Asians and Africans are exploited to work on farms and in factories under the threat that, for example, if the person reports it, the employer will tell immigration that the foreigner is illegal.
Often, the employee is an adult with dependents who, out of necessity, allows themselves to be subjected to abusive treatment and a kind of modern slavery by the employer.
There are some cases that are never known throughout life, but they do occur, and that is the case of Asians. The Chinese
As we all know, China is a country with very high poverty rates, where many Chinese yearn and desire to leave their country and settle in the American continent to have a better life than the one they live there.
In this desire to leave their country, they sometimes commit desperate actions like the one we are going to describe.
Chinese who are already established in countries on the American continent bring in other Chinese who have no money to travel or support themselves.
Sometimes through illegal and clandestine entry into the Americas, and once they’re here, they put them to work in their companies without paying them anything for the first few years, until they, according to them, pay off the debt for the cost of the trip, etc.
This kind of inhumane treatment and modern slavery is largely ignored by the Chinese who are subjected to it, for fear of being deported and losing, they say, a chance at a better life.
This happens a lot in countries like Panama.
Many would think that this is an issue from many years ago and that these things are from the past, but the reality is that this is not the case.
The truth is that even in these times this type of abuse still occurs.
The proof is that earlier this year, a Panamanian woman who had received an offer in her home country, Panama, to work in Spain.
It turns out that when she arrived in Spain, she realized that she had been deceived and subjected to sexual exploitation in Spain.
The Panamanian DIJ, together with Interpol and authorities in Spain, dismantled this criminal organization in Spain, comprised of five Colombian nationals and one Spanish national, in an operation called Puerta del Sol.
It’s important to mention that prostitution is not part of Panamanian women’s culture; sometimes, foreigners unfamiliar with the culture get ideas that aren’t true. In this case, these five Colombian nationals face serious charges in Spain, and after serving their sentences in that country, they will all be deported to Colombia.
Something we as Interpol lawyers have witnessed and participated in over the years is the many extradition cases.
The government sees one side, obviously enforcing the law, and they actually know little or very little about the people requested for extradition.
They know what the file says, but they have very little contact with the person and their family, and they are unaware of their suffering.
As a private law firm, we see the other side of the coin, working closely with the detainee and communicating with his or her family.
Those detained in extradition cases suffer greatly; the mere fact of being detained in another country and far from their families complicates everything.
One of our law firm’s most memorable cases is the arrest of a German citizen in our country. We won’t mention any names for reasons of professional ethics, but it’s a case that will undoubtedly remain forever in our memories.
This is a case that occurred more than ten years ago.
This Mr. Alemán was not a client of ours, but he was detained at the same time as a client of ours and was also wanted for extradition.
Just two days after our client entered the jail, Mr. Alemán passed away.
Since we didn’t know him and really knew very little about his case, we learned from our client that he had died in prison.
It was precisely through our client that we learned about his story and what he was going through while facing extradition proceedings.
Those detained in extradition cases suffer greatly, and things get even more complicated if they don’t speak the same language. It’s a real ordeal if they suffer from an illness and don’t have access to their medication. This can become a major problem, as we have witnessed.
We also learned that the man didn’t speak either English or Spanish, which became really worrying.
There is one year that will always be remembered in terms of extradition issues, and that was 2015.
By that year, the United States was waging a battle against Indian online pharmacies selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
This was a social issue of great concern, as new online pharmacies were appearing every day. These lower-priced products were being sold all over the world and were entering the United States.
These were serious medicines that treated all kinds of diseases.
It was something like a drug epidemic.
Many of these products were created in clandestine laboratories or did not comply with health regulations. Most were generic, although many others did produce counterfeit drugs.
The United States declared war on them, and it was through Operation Pangea that many of these Indians were captured in Panama.
There were dozens of them, and many of them were our clients.
The story was so incredible that it seemed like something out of a movie.
They were ordinary people trying to support their families, but they had made a mistake.
The proof of this incredible story was captured in a book written and published in 2019 in two languages by one of our firm’s lead attorneys. The book is called Sixty Days and is available on Amazon.
The story portrays what Operation Pangea was like from the deepest perspective ever captured.
From the capture, detention, and entire extradition process that an Indian businessman went through.
It was a case in the United States with more than 14 charges against one of the largest online pharmacy owners in India at the time. The man owned his own company and handled an impressive volume of shipments to the United States. Unfortunately, this cost this man his freedom for so many months.
The man had clung to Panama like a child to his father. He refused to accept the idea of going to the United States and facing 14 charges, and he faced extradition proceedings in Panama.
The story not only shows the other side of Operation Pangea but also what it’s like to experience an extradition process like never before.
To date, there has never been a larger Interpol operation than Operation Pangea or one that has resulted in the extradition of more people than Pangea did.
The authorities see the other side, the capture and detention, but they don’t deal with the people.
A law firm specializing in extradition matters deals with this all the time, dealing with the suffering and pain of families.
Even though we maintain a completely professional relationship, one witnesses the grief of family members in court, as happened in the Sixty Days Story.
