On 17 September the Brazilian federal police detained a Russian national in Florianópolis who was wanted on suspicion of fraud. The police statement contains a detail that is easy to walk past: the search was running not through a public red notice but through an INTERPOL red diffusion. The order for detention pending extradition was issued by Brazil's Federal Supreme Court. An arrest in itself establishes no guilt.

The case illustrates what we tell clients regularly: a search of INTERPOL's public website proves almost nothing.

Two channels, not one

INTERPOL passes requests between countries in two ways.

• A notice is published by the General Secretariat at the request of a national bureau — after review.
• A diffusion is circulated by a national bureau directly to other countries through the secure system. The requirements are the same, but recipients get it before the review is complete.

For the person concerned the difference is slight: either can end in detention at a border. For the defence the difference is fundamental — these are different documents, with different histories and different arguments.

The colour states the purpose

Both notices and diffusions come in colours. Red — locate a person and detain them with a view to extradition. Blue — obtain additional information about a person's identity, location or activities. Yellow — missing persons. Green — a warning about a person who may pose a threat to public safety. Purple — sharing information on the methods used to commit offences. Black and orange also exist.

Hence a simple rule: every red diffusion is a diffusion, but not every diffusion is red. In everyday usage "diffusion" means the wanted-person request, although formally it is a general mechanism.

Why the public database shows nothing

INTERPOL's website publishes not the red notices themselves but extracts from them — and only where the country that requested the search asks for publication. INTERPOL states it plainly: most red notices are available to law enforcement only. Diffusions do not appear in the public search at all.

The conclusion worth remembering: the absence of a name from the public database does not mean there is nothing in the system. That can be established only through a formal request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files — the request is free, and its outcome determines everything that follows.

Neither a notice nor a diffusion is an international arrest warrant

INTERPOL does not arrest. It passes information between countries, while the decision to detain is taken by a state under its own domestic law. The Brazilian case shows this clearly: the diffusion reported the search, and the basis for detention was created by a national court's decision.

The practical consequence is that work has to run on two levels at once — on the data held in INTERPOL's system and on the procedure in the country where the person is. Neither replaces the other.

New: a request may target assets rather than a person

Since January 2025 INTERPOL has been trialling the "silver notice" — a mechanism for locating and tracing assets said to be linked to criminal activity. According to the organisation itself, 81 countries take part in the pilot, while requests can be sent to all one hundred and ninety-six member countries. More than two hundred requests are live in the system, seeking assets worth roughly USD 2.2 billion; over forty million has been traced and identified. The first silver notice was published at Italy's request — and the assets behind it turned up in Brazil, more than USD 1.7 million of them.

In November 2025 the General Assembly extended the trial and tasked the expert group with presenting the full results and its recommendations at the next session. That session runs from 30 November to 3 December 2026 in Hong Kong, and it is there that the mechanism's future will be settled.

Two details matter more than the rest. First, locating assets, freezing them and confiscating them are three different legal outcomes: the request by itself disposes of nothing, and each step requires the procedures of the country where the asset sits. Second, a final conviction is not required — the mechanism can be used at the investigation stage.

For someone holding assets abroad this means dates of acquisition, sources of funds and transaction records acquire weight. Where property was bought long before the events described in the charges, it is documents that must show it, not explanations.

What follows from this

• Checking the public website is not a check. A reliable answer comes only from a formal request for access to the data.
• The type of record is established before any strategy: a notice, a diffusion and a record of a lost document are different things.
• The decision to detain is taken by the country of presence, so its procedure matters as much as the work with INTERPOL itself.
• The asset side of a case now leads a life of its own, and documents on the origin of assets are better prepared in advance.

This material is for general information and is not legal advice. A specific situation can be assessed only on the documents.