INTERPOL Financial Crime Division

INTERPOL's Financial Crime division focuses on crime types that exploit the international financial system, including money laundering, business email compromise (BEC), investment fraud, online banking fraud, and the proceeds of crime from other offences such as human trafficking and drug trafficking. The division works by enabling member country police forces to share intelligence, issue diffusions and red notices for suspected financial criminals, and coordinate simultaneous enforcement actions across multiple jurisdictions.

Notable operations run by the division include Operation HAECHI, which targets online scams and money mule networks in Asia-Pacific, and Operation First Light, a global operation against social engineering, phishing, and investment fraud. These operations typically result in arrests and asset seizures across dozens of countries simultaneously, disrupting the financial infrastructure used by organised fraud syndicates.

Consumers cannot report directly to INTERPOL. However, understanding that INTERPOL-coordinated operations exist helps explain why cross-border money recovery occasionally succeeds even when funds have moved to foreign accounts. Victims of large-scale international investment fraud or BEC are encouraged to provide detailed reports to their national agencies (FBI/IC3 in the US, Action Fraud in the UK, etc.) because these reports feed into the national contributions to INTERPOL intelligence. The INTERPOL website publishes public notices about globally active fraud schemes that consumers and businesses can monitor.