Launched in June 2025, Interpol Spotlight is a quarterly newsletter that delves into how the organisation’s member states work together to address complex challenges such as cybersecurity, money laundering, and environmental crime. Each issue focuses on a specific theme and features a diverse mixture of content, ranging from analyses to interviews.
Topics covered
The first issue consists of six chapters:
- Wildlife crime
- Iboga bush trafficking
- Silver notices
- Vehicular theft
- Editorial introduction
- Interpol’s July 2025 conference
Wildlife crime and Operation Thunder
Illegal flora (plant life) and fauna (animal life) trafficking is a global criminal activity that generates “billions of illegal dollars” each year and is made possible through a combination of corruption, poor governance, and a deficit in law enforcement resources.
Interpol has taken several steps to combat this problem, including integrating its Environmental Security Unit into the Organised Crime Directorate, and partnering with multiple law enforcement and customs agencies from over 130 countries and the World Customs Organisation to participate in Operation Thunder, a month-long program aimed at targeting flora and fauna trafficking around the world.
The undertaking successfully resulted in nearly 20,000 live animals being seized, 365 arrests being made, 10 criminal networks being identified, and 100 companies revealed as being complicit in trafficking protected species.
Combatting illegal exportation through international cooperation
Gabon’s National Police Force partnered with Interpol and the European Network Against Crime and Terrorism (ENACT) to combat the illegal exportation and trafficking of the native iboga bush, which is used to create the psychoactive substance ibogaine.
The coordinated research efforts between ministries and agencies in Gabon and Interpol resulted in the production of a report on iboga trafficking and the publication of a Purple Notice that provided insight into the methods used by criminal groups to traffick the plant. These two actions ultimately led to an increase in seizures of the iboga plant and ibogaine.
Major General Serge Ngoma, the Commander-in-Chief of the Gabonese National Police Force, attributed part of the success of the collaboration to Interpol facilitating the development of a system and approach tailored to the specific needs of local authorities.
Silver notice success stories
In January 2025, Interpol published its first silver notice, which is aimed at tracing, identifying, and recovering criminal assets. This notice resulted in Brazil and Italy cooperating on an operation that resulted in over USD 1.7 million in illicit assets being seized and both states ultimately better understanding the scale and complexity of criminal networks and the illegal assets they traffick.
To further assist partner countries, Interpol ran a series of workshops for justice specialists and law enforcement agencies to ensure they understood how to properly utilise silver notices.
Combatting stolen vehicle crime
Every year, thousands of cars are stolen and utilised by criminal networks to transport and sell illicit cargo, drugs, weapons, and facilitate terrorist attacks. To combat this widespread activity, Interpol utilises the services of its Stolen Motor Vehicle unit, which focuses on finding and returning stolen vehicles and investigating any possible ties to organised crime. To assist partner countries, the unit shares information on its database, which all Interpol members can access and is a first port of call for investigating automobile theft.
The unit also assists member countries through its Formatrain program, which provides education on organised vehicular theft (including investigation and identification), with training built around each country’s specific context and needs.
Interpol Criminal Intelligence Officer Renato Schipani explained the severity of the issue by stating that globally “over a quarter of a million vehicles were identified in our SMV database in 2024 – an average of more than 5,000 every week”.
The unit’s efforts have not been in vain, as evidenced by Interpol’s Project Drive Out partnership with Canada’s Public Safety Department, which sought to locate stolen automobiles and spare parts around the world and share that data with automobile manufacturers. Their combined efforts resulted in more than 9,000 stolen vehicles being identified in Canada in 2024.
Interpol Secretary General introduces Spotlight
In his editorial, Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza introduced Spotlight and spoke about the publication’s overarching theme of organised crime. He noted both how it harmed the international community and how Interpol was targeting networks and their finances, and cited the accompanying chapters in the newsletter as examples of recent actions successfully taken by Interpol.
Interpol conference promotes international cooperation
Interpol held a two-day conference at its headquarters in July 2025 entitled INTERPOL Partner’s Conference 2025: Investing in a safer world. The conference, which focused on the issues of security as it relates to social and economic development and combatting organised crime, sought to be a forum for attendees to “build and strengthen” partnerships to better address these complex challenges.
The two-day event included a question and answer session with Secretary General Urquiza, a round-table entitled INTERPOL’s Unique Mission: Connecting and Enabling Police Around the World, a series of panels on cybercrime, anti-corruption, counter-terrorism and financial crime, and organised and emerging crime, and a brief panel on preventing child sexual exploitation online.
Key takeaways
Interpol’s new Spotlight newsletter is a helpful tool for specialists operating in national security, foreign relations, development, justice, law, and more, in staying abreast of new challenges that Interpol and its partners are identifying and how they are working together to face them to ensure the protection of the global community.
