Chantelle Benjamin
19 November 2008
Johannesburg — INTERPOL is looking to popular internet social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube to help catch 15000 fugitives - from war criminals to sex offenders and fraudsters.
This emerged at the fifth annual conference of 187 Interpol member states, which is being held in Johannesburg.
This is the first time the conference is being held outside Europe. Dimitros Souxes, speaking on behalf of Interpol, told Business Day yesterday that SA was chosen because it was holding the 2010 Soccer World Cup, which would involve co-operation with Interpol.
"It was a good opportunity for the relevant organisations in SA to get to know the Interpol staff because we will be working together during 2010," he said.
He also said the country was also an important player in the region and has assisted the organisation in capturing several high-profile fugitives.
Interpol s ecretary-g eneral Ronald Noble said yesterday the organisation was looking to the i nternet as a new way to trace fugitives, who are constantly on the move.
"Social networking sites are changing the way people interact with one another, which offers many opportunities for law enforcement as well," he said.
"People use the internet routinely to find former classmates or individuals with similar interests. There is no reason why law enforcement should not avail itself of this same resource."
The methods being used by Interpol to trace war criminals include placing video clips on MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, alerting the public to fugitives sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for war crimes .
"There are still 13 fugitives sought by the t ribunal before its scheduled closure next month, and 70 wanted by our n ational central bureau in Rwanda, so there is clearly more we can and should do," said Noble.
After an appeal by Interpol, two child sex offenders were arrested after posting images of child abuse on the internet -- one 11 days after the launch of the appeal and the other 48 hours later.
Interpol is also considering monitoring the social networks' photo-sharing sites, or encouraging people on those sites to report sightings and track the movements of fugitives.
According to Noble, Interpol has 15000 wanted person notices currently in circulation.
"This year, more than 600 people have been arrested on the basis of Interpol notices, and since 2000, almost 27000 fugitives have been caught." He said many of the successes were the result of someone recognising a fugitive from a poster. Nobel recounted a story of a Monaco policeman investigating an accident who recognised the injured man as an I nterpol fugitive when he went to the hospital to interview him.
Better co-operation between countries would see more such opportunities, he said.
Nobel thanked SA for capturing wanted Czech Republic millionaire Radovan Krejcr, who was wanted for fraud involving millions of euros and conspiracy to commit murder, when he entered Johannesburg on a Seychelles passport using a false name.
Also arrested in SA was Khalfan Mohamed, who was wanted in the US for his involvement in the bombing of the US embassy in Tanzania.
Souxes said the aim of the three-day conference was to share innovative techniques with member countries and to look at successes in other countries.
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