Overview

• Vitalie Pirlog was arrested in the United Arab Emirates on June 16 under a French international arrest warrant tied to an inquiry into corruption at Interpol.
• He is suspected of accepting bribes to help fugitives obtain asylum in Moldova and thereby suspend or delete their Interpol red notices.
• The French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office launched its investigation in August 2023 after Interpol detected attempts to tamper with a small number of its 70,000 red notices.
• Joint searches by French, Moldovan and U.S. authorities, including the FBI, uncovered a multi-national network suspected of handling millions of dollars in illicit payments.
• Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock has announced internal reforms to the file control process as the probe into senior officials continues.