Russia using Interpol's wanted list to target critics abroad, leak reveals
186 points
9 hours ago
| 10 comments
| bbc.com
| HN
BeetleB
1 hour ago
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They make a quick mention of Turkey. Turkey probably perfected this technique - they've been abusing Interpol this way for years. Many people (e.g. Americans) who have openly criticized Turkey (blog post, Twitter, etc) have found themselves on the Interpol list and in trouble when traveling abroad.

https://www.justsecurity.org/87260/after-spotlight-on-red-no...

https://www.csce.gov/statements/authoritarian-abuse-interpol...

https://stockholmcf.org/turkey-among-top-abusers-of-interpol...

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PearlRiver
1 hour ago
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Turkey is hilarious. It is run by a conservative Islam dictator but their tourism advertising portrays alcohol and women in bikinis.
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Mikhail_Edoshin
6 hours ago
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Couldn't it be merely a criminal claiming to be a political victim to avoid extradition? Never heard the name here at all, let alone in a political context.

I myself know from close hearsay a fellow who happily traded grain until 2022 when he left for US with $50m of a bank's money in his pocket. A few people in the bank lost their jobs as a result. Those people would certainly welcome that critic back.

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embedding-shape
6 hours ago
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I guess he could be, but Interpol themselves seems to disagree with that since they canceled the request after looking into it deeper:

> After Pestrikov had spent almost two years on the wanted list, the CCF ruled that his case was predominantly political. He showed us CCF documents that said the information Russia had provided was "generic and formulaic" and there had been an "inadequate explanation" of the alleged crime. Interpol cancelled the request for Pestrikov's detention.

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pydry
2 hours ago
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As an oligarch who acquired a mining company on the cheap during the post soviet gangster 90s he doesnt exactly fit the profile of a beleagured peace activist.

The way that he is described by the BBC as a businessman (not an oligarch) also suggests that he was taken off the list for political reasons. London collects activist Russian oligarchs the same way Washington collects activist ex-Iranian monarchy.

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kgeist
8 hours ago
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Not denying that Russia abuses Interpol, but I have doubts about this particular narrative that he was some kind of "government critic." From what I can find, he privatized a state corporation in the 90s for pennies (lots of very shady deals back then, usually facilitated by organized crime). From 2010-2020, I can find media reports about his legal problems with tax evasion. In 2021, there was a case where he threatened people with murder while holding a rifle. He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022, when he took 250 mln from the company's budget without consulting the board of directors and left Russia (and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal). I suspect he's part of the 90s mafia who's now on the Interpol list, which makes his life abroad questionable, so now he has to spin the narrative that it's a political case.
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s_dev
3 hours ago
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>Not denying that Russia abuses Interpol

The Bill Browder case was clear abuse. In case anyone is looking for a single precedent of this.

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braincat31415
2 hours ago
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That's what he says, but I very much doubt that. He was running an investment fund in Russia in the 90s. Back then such activity was impossible there without some connection to the organized crime, whether state-affiliated or otherwise. He likely lost the power struggle against other crooks and got Interpol used against him.
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s_dev
46 minutes ago
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braincat31415
19 minutes ago
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I know about this, but again, this does not mean that Browder himself was squeaky clean. My opinion is that he bit off more than he could chew, aligned with the wrong crew and lost the fight with the people more powerful than he was. Of course I don't know anything for sure, but it is highly unlikely that an investment fund in the 90s Russia was compliant with the law. At the very least, a lot of wheels had to be greased in order to be able to operate, and that opens the door for more shady stuff. It is a bad example of an innocent person being referred to Interpol.
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alephnerd
1 hour ago
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By that logic Mark Carney (the PM of Canada) is a potential criminal as well because he did M&A and Sovereign Risk work for GS's Russian investments during Shock Therapy and the post-Apartheid government in ZA (most of whom ended up being associated with Zumagate) in the early-to-mid 1990s [0].

[0] - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/mark-carn...

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braincat31415
1 hour ago
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Alephnerd, I doubt Mark Carney was personally involved in anything shady, but it is entirely possible that GS operations in Russia proper were not entirely clean. I am not even implying that GS was aware of anything. What I am saying is not a long stretch by any means, just look up the 1mdb scandal. And Browder was right there in Moscow in the middle of it. Tell any Russian old enough to remember that Browder's operations in the 90s were in complete compliance with the law, they would laugh in your face.
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viktorcode
7 hours ago
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And yet despite his alleged criminal activities Russian prosecutors have failed to present an evidence-backed case that would warrant the notice to Interpol. That is why it was cleared.
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pjc50
5 hours ago
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Ah, this is an OJ Simpson: looks extremely guilty, but because the police are lazy and incompetent they frame him rather than building an actual case.
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jmkni
7 hours ago
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By he you mean Igor Pestrikov?
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lazide
6 hours ago
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To be fair, regardless of the details, every case in Russia is a political case. It’s the way the judiciary works there.
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FpUser
3 hours ago
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Cut the crap please. There is a huge difference between likes of say serial rapist and ones that are in prison because they voiced disagreement with the Russian government. Btw the West happily deporting Russians who are in opposition to regime and are chased by it..
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benterix
2 hours ago
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I would reframe that. Everything that Kremlin says may or may not be true, so one may as well ignore it. And they are very happy to use the judiciary system against their opponents as in this case the victim is not just the enemy of the Kremlin, it's the enemy of all citizens (or, to be more precise, the ones who trust the version of truth presented by their government).
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justsomehnguy
50 minutes ago
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Something something some guy Assange.
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benterix
10 minutes ago
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Yes, the USA did the same with Assange. The same with Chelsea Manning - she was accused of treason and basically faced capital punishment at some point. I'm grateful to Obama that he basically saved her life.

But in Russia, this is on a completely another level. Especially if you started the business in the 90s, there is no way they couldn't dig up any dirt on you.

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trhway
7 hours ago
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The point here isn't whether this guy clean or not. The point is that you can't trust allegations made by Russia. Any allegations made by Russia are what is called "fruit of the poisoned tree".

And just for example, Navalny was put in prison for alleged and proven in a so called "Russian court of law" financial/commercial crimes.

>He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022

That suggests that Russia was for 20+ years fine with whatever financial crimes this guy had been committing as long as he played ball (and like many there continue to commit while staying loyal to the regime), and is really using these crimes to get him now for political motives. (and, yes, looking at current Russian opposition you can find a bunch of guys who is rich and most probably made their money in Russia not in completely legal way, and i honestly don't have respect for them, yet it is clear that the regime is going after them purely for their opposition)

>and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal

there has been whole wave of such findings recently (and Supreme Court specifically removed statute of limitations here). As result the privatization is usually nullified, the property gets confiscated by the government, and later it ends up in the hands of Putin's friends, family, loyalists. It is a huge redistribution of assets under the guise of "Russian law"

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tdiff
53 minutes ago
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> That suggests that Russia was for 20+ years fine with whatever financial crimes this guy had been committing as long as he played ball ... and is really using these crimes to get him now for political motives.

Even if so, it does not contradict the idea that his actions may have been unlawful and thus can be punished according to crimial law.

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pydry
7 hours ago
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Yeah, the UK has a habit of giving a new home to Russian oligarchs.

There are several in my area of London who live in opulent mansions (one looks very Trump-like) bought with soviet privatization wealth.

Some of their houses: https://www.mylondon.news/news/property/london-mansions-owne...

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dvfjsdhgfv
5 hours ago
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Gosh, this one in Witanhurst, Highgate is a real beast. He must have a ton of people just to maintain it.
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derelicta
7 hours ago
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I suppose our own politicians are so corrupt they see nothing wrong with such behavior and automatically consider such case as abusive.
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mvdwoord
6 hours ago
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The Dutch Tax Authority also does this.
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pjc50
6 hours ago
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[citation needed]
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goinghjuk
7 hours ago
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another thing they do, when one of their agents/criminal affiliates is arrested, they invent a serious crime he did in Russia and demand extradition

a good example is the BTCe crypto exchange founder

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rdtsc
3 hours ago
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If high profile enough they may find some excuse to arrest a US or EU citizen then “exchange” them.
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dvfjsdhgfv
5 hours ago
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This is one way. But one more popular is to force anyone doing serious business to do things that are formally against the law, but you can't function without them (like payments to some officers). In this way you make sure everyone is controlled and you can threaten them easily, no need to invent everything as it's already organized. And if they don't comply, the case is practically ready.
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rk06
47 minutes ago
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as an Indian that explains so much....
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KingMob
7 hours ago
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I knew Carmen Sandiego was framed!
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lovich
8 hours ago
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I’ll just assume this is correct because I believe the Russian government has mastered the art of just lying when there are no consequences, but if I was being critical, this phrase is giving me pause for evaluating the conclusions.

> The data is not complete…

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preisschild
8 hours ago
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Currently in my country (Austria) there is a court process against an official who made register look-ups of critical journalists who live here and handed the address to FSB-Agents who later broke into this journalists apartment. The ruzzians are completely unscrupulous.

https://www.reuters.com/world/austrian-ex-intelligence-accus...

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ljsprague
7 hours ago
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Do we believe some countries' spy agencies are scrupulous?
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cestith
2 hours ago
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I think people tend to have a range of scruples they expect. How someone is targeted is often far more lax on standards than who is targeted and for what reasons.
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preisschild
5 hours ago
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Which spy agencies go after journalists?
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pydry
2 hours ago
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70% of the journalists murdered last year were murdered by the US's closest ally.

It was the worst year for journalist killings in a long time.

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lazide
6 hours ago
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Maybe one of the nearly powerless ones? Australia?

Hmm, nope.

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joe_mamba
8 hours ago
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> The ruzzians are completely unscrupulous.

Wait a sec, isn't the Austrian intelligence officer to blame here for doing the spying on Russia's behalf?

And Austrian politics in general have historically been very pro-Russia since the cold war, with Putin visiting the wedding of Austrian officials, and Austrian politicians getting jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after the end of their mandates. Also, Austrian Raiffeisen bank still has operations in Russia.

So maybe Austria could have some introspection and drain the swamp of Russian assets instead of throwing all the blame on Russia as it has no agency in its internal politics and business tie with Russia.

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lazide
6 hours ago
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To be fair, if you want a boogie man which won’t even mind being used as one - Russia is a great option.
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preisschild
5 hours ago
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> Wait a sec, isn't the Austrian intelligence officer to blame here for doing the spying on Russia's behalf?

Of course, but I'd argue russia trying to break into apartments of journalists and even planning to obduct/kill them is also morally not great

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SanjayMehta
8 hours ago
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In which language is "ruzzians" a valid spelling?
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jimbohn
7 hours ago
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Became used in some circles due to russians using the symbol "Z" for their new great patriotic war. It can be seen as an attempt not to lump all russians together, but instead to distinguish the pro-war group (which, if you like limits, tends toward 1).
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throw20251220
7 hours ago
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In a Cold Warrior language. Very often found in Southern US states (rednecks).
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cpursley
6 hours ago
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This is why I always flag these types of posts that are political and not tech related, they quickly devolve to Reddit-style racial / ethnic hatred if conversations about geopolitical rivals or regional hatred and name calling if domestic politics. There's other platforms for all that.
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bilekas
9 hours ago
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> Pestrikov found he was named in a red diffusion after he fled Russia in June 2022

It doesn't say how he found out, I would imagine he's regularly checking online, he was stopped at a control check somewhere?

Seems to me that most people wouldn't have a clue until they're being arrested. But again another scummy behaviour from the Russian government.

It might as well just be prudent to ignore their requests altogether. Boy who cried wolf.

Edit : it did indeed say how. I missed it.

> After he fled to France, he was worried that the Kremlin might try to target him there, so he contacted Interpol

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JasonADrury
8 hours ago
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You can pay $500 online in cryptocurrency to find out if there are interpol notices regarding a person. It's a convenient feature of interpol being so... international.

Such services are frequently advertised on forums like rutor

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bilekas
8 hours ago
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Well Interpol will tell you directly so no need to fund criminal groups.

https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Red-Notices/...

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strken
8 hours ago
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> The majority of Red Notices are restricted to law enforcement use only.

> Extracts of Red Notices are published at the request of the member country concerned and where the public’s help may be needed to locate an individual or if the individual may pose a threat to public safety.

So, no, only a minority of them are made public.

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JasonADrury
8 hours ago
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Besides, you'd probably want to know about a blue notice.
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cestith
2 hours ago
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I’d like to know if I’m the subject of any of the Interpol notices. That is, unless it’s a Black Notice and it’s correct. Then I couldn’t really care. Even that one, though, if my name’s attached and it’s wrong that seems really bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice

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bilekas
7 hours ago
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Ah I see, still is no excuse to find crime, only adding to your potential problems really.
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hexage1814
7 hours ago
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Brazil's judicial dictatorship has been doing the same, sadly.
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sigmar
6 hours ago
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Are you referring to the woman that was convicted for hacking and 'illegal coercion through the use of a firearm'? Or someone else? https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/08/29/italy-keeps-zambe...
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