During the opening of the 93rd session of the General Assembly of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) on Monday in Marrakech, Dr. Major General Ahmed Nasser Al Raisi, President of INTERPOL, reviewed the outstanding achievements made by INTERPOL during his tenure, particularly with regard to strengthening its operational capabilities and expanding the scope of its intervention to confront escalating security challenges, in addition to modernizing the technical infrastructure and enhancing specialized training programs for personnel, stressing that all these efforts have contributed to consolidating the organization’s reputation and strengthening the confidence of member states in it.
The same international security official praised Morocco at the beginning of his speech for hosting the current session of the General Assembly for the second time in its history, after hosting the 2007 session, stressing that “the Kingdom of Morocco is a well-established model of openness and cooperation, given its continuous support for the progress of international security and the strengthening of accumulated efforts to protect societies around the world.”
Ahmed Nasser Al Raisi added that “the General Assembly meeting of the International Criminal Police Organization is not just an annual dialogue, but an important platform that supports international cooperation in the field of police and security work and enables member states to shape the future of the world’s largest police organization.”
He added: “In Istanbul in 2021, when I took over the presidency of this organization, I affirmed my commitment to leading the modernization process from within the organization based on integrity and innovation, intensifying cross-border cooperation and involving all member states, which were 195 and are now 196 across the world’s continents, in decision-making. I also pledged to adopt the latest technologies in INTERPOL operations, enhance information exchange mechanisms, raise the level of trust among member states, consolidate the principles of diversity and inclusion, and ensure that every commitment we make yields real progress and tangible results.”
He explained that “over the past four years, the efforts of the member states have been combined and we have succeeded in turning this vision into a practical reality; as we have worked on managing and coordinating more than 200 cross-border operations around the world, which resulted in the seizure of illegal drugs and the recovery of stolen vehicles worth more than US$17.3 billion, and we have issued signals for the recovery of looted funds estimated at US$19 billion.”
The same spokesperson stressed that “it is not just about numbers, but about the lives of people we have protected and the criminal networks whose activities we have thwarted and dismantled. We have witnessed a range of the organization’s activities that have played a role in uniting the efforts of law enforcement agencies around the world, and operations such as ‘Fander,’ ‘Hagee,’ ‘Libratera,’ and ‘Trigger’ have become a model in the field of international police cooperation, after they succeeded in arresting thousands of outlaws and providing protection for the vulnerable around the world.” He emphasized that “every advance we make is evidence of the extent of the confidence of member states in this organization, and every life we protect and every crime we combat is a shared achievement for all of us.”
He explained that “the great development in information exchange mechanisms has had the greatest impact on the success of the organization’s operations. This year we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the INTERPOL Global Innovation Hub in Singapore, which is a key pillar of the organization’s leadership in the field of digital and cyber innovation. Over the past decade, this hub has contributed to enhancing our capabilities to support law enforcement agencies and enable them to address complex crime threats and raise their level of readiness to face future challenges.”
He pointed out that “more than 73,000 officers around the world have been trained since 2022, through in-person and virtual training courses to develop their skills and raise their readiness,” also highlighting that “the number of employees of the International Criminal Police Organization was about 1,000 employees from 115 countries, meaning that about a third of the member states had no representation within the organization’s staff, a gap that had a clear impact on our credibility and our ability to perform our tasks. Today, we have expanded the geographical diversity of our employees from 115 countries to 141 countries, an increase of 28 percent in the last four years, with Africa’s representation increasing by 46 percent, the Americas by 43 percent, Asia and the Pacific by 34 percent, and Europe by 12 percent.”
