Interpol: World Police

How are you, sir? I'm pretty good your papers? Please? No? What is that you know? Into pol is that you sounded like? Um? The little Asian man who gives the box to Pinhead, the man who eventually becomes Pinhead. What does y'all plasias? Uh? That's kind of who you're wanting to be. Well, then that's what I was doing. Good one, My first good impression yet. The guy has interpoll written all over him, he's got a he's got an orange notice out on him. I'll bet you green. We'll get

on that later. Chuck. I'm pretty much sure you had nothing to do with this, so you may not have heard about it. Um. Back in two thousand eleven about this time. March two thousand eleven, inter Poll, the international police organization, cracked a UM child pedophile ring, the biggest one ever really centered on a website I guess appropriately enough called boy lover dot net run out of Amsterdam.

Boy lover dot net is just a straight up legitimate gay porn site, but there was a forum there with like seventy thousand members with that like said, well, hey, you're you're into this kind of thing too, huh Um, I got a video that you're gonna love, and I also have a little boy that I'm gonna mail to you. So this wasn't affiliated with the website. No, they're just using one of the forums as a meeting place for pedophiles.

But Interpol busted these guys up, rescued UM two and thirty kids, arrested a hundred and eight four UM suspects just in the first sweet pretty much in thirty countries. Yeah, good for them, It is good for them. It's just one of the many victories and triumphs over pederasty that Interpol can boast. That's right, and not just pederasty, like all sorts of huge international crimes. Anytime there's a crime syndicate or a ring. You need to watch out because

Interpoll's watching you. Into Poll is right behind you. Why does y'all plasia? Uh? And this was actually fans generated this. Um. This came on Facebook like three days ago. Oh really, I wish i'd have got the guy's name. Some kid was like, hey, can you do one interpoll? And I went, yeah, sure, sure. He wasn't talking about the band. He might have been. They still around. Yeah, they're still around. H yeah they are. Yeah, I don't I don't know what they're doing these days.

I'm not a fan, so I don't know. Dude, how do you not like Inner Pole? Just like listen to their music and it didn't sit right in my ears. I'm surprised. I thought, like everybody like Dinner Pole. Yeah, they're just good. Yeah, yeah, do you think all right?

INTERPOL the International Criminal Police Organization or i c PO, or if you're in France or their headquartered, you might call it the Organists Organist Internacional de Police criminal very nice, which is pretty much the same thing and different word order. I didn't know this, but criminal is feminine. Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't realize that they like the ladies. Yes, all right, So, as you said, Josh, they are an international UM fully autonomous,

not affiliated with any single country or inization. I think they're a hundred eighty six countries nine now, and they all contribute to the to the budget, to the kitty based on their size and their g d P and some other factors. It's very it's very fair, um, but it's very important, like you said, that they're not beholden to any one country, UM and that they remain neutral, and they don't and they don't engage in any um any investigations into political stuff things UM contributing or being

centered on race or um religion. That's right. My brain is now working today. My brain is uh so what they do, Josh, you just said what they don't do? What they do do, uh terrorism, sexual terrorism like nobody, sexual abuse, especially with children, which is what you just talked about. UM, organized crime, international fugitives, computer crime, UM stolen, aren't money laundering, human trafficking, illegal drugs, smuggling, environmental crime,

anything that crosses international borders. Almost you're gonna find into pol helping helping out with But and you said the magic phrase helping out like interpoll doesn't have they don't run around like arresting guys. Place back guys. It is interpoll UM and they they don't have interpolled jail, as a Grabanowski points out, UM. But what they do is they serve as this international meeting point for UM already established national agencies. Right, So let's let's do a little scenario.

I'm FBI agent Todd Ridgeway of the des Moines, IOWA Field office, and your agent, Vinny Testaverity of the Politia Destado in Italy, and I believe a terrorist is UM hiding out near your fel Old office in Genoa. So I'm calling you up like ring ring. This is Todd Ridgeway. I'm with the FBI in Des Moines. Hey, Todd, this is Vinny tes So. And see what Chuck just demonstrated was how it doesn't work because Vinny Testaverdi doesn't speak

a look of English and Todd Ridgeway doesn't speak any Italian. Right. And not only that, he shouldn't have been calling Vinny Testaverdi, he should have been calling Giuseppe de Bikono UM, who's with the local police, because that's what the Italian UM police bureaucracy protocol calls for but he has no idea, no,

so what does he do? He calls into POTE that's right, and they step up and they're like, you know, he need to get in touch with You need to get in touch with Vinny Testa, Verdie's cousin who works for the state police over there, the Polizza but Italy, because there who's handling this case. Here's their number. In fact, let me go ahead and patch it through. But not only that, I'm gonna and I'm going to translate for you. Um. Yeah,

So they're the interpoll Um. Interpol has what are called National Central Bureaus national country Bureaus no National Central Bureaus n CBS, and that's like an FBI field office, but they have them in different countries around the world, and they serve as liaisons for the local or state or national police with the same their counterparts in other countries.

That's the big one. Yea. It gets you know when you it's it's complicated enough within these United States with jurisdictions and protocol, but when you open it up to the world, boy, it gets all kinds of crazy. So luckily into poll is there you've been any peing contests well,

they probably tried to, but them should they exist? Um. Their big deal is their databases, because the FBI and the CIA, why they might all have like and whatever your country's databases are crime databases, they probably just extend to that country, unless it's like some sort of database on terrorism. UM interpolls. Databases are away extensive. They circle the globe and they can track criminals pretty much anywhere

and everywhere. Fingerprints, mug shots, wanted people, DNA, you name it. UM. They have a they have a database just of lost lost in stolen travel documents. It's got more than like twelve million files to it. Yeah. I think I saw somewhere today too that they said most people don't try and recover those, which I thought was interesting. Well, I imagine like if you lose your passport, you're probably traveling abroad and yeah, you're not getting that back. You never

know unless you go. Yeah, yeah, they could have your stuff because who knows, they could that could have been stolen to be used in some trafficking syndicate. It's true, and your name could be all drug all through the mud on boilover dot net. UM. The the database that they are, the databases that they maintain or are their own, but they're open and their access through this UM communications net we're called I seven. That's something because inter poll

is UM. They're open seven three even on Christmas. They're fully operational. Really, they don't close down like all the police do here on Christmas. No, because think about it, man, UM, Well, yes, I get your joke, but I mean think about the skeleton crews that go down. I think inter polls open all the time because they cross all all UM time

zones at all times. Yeah, so they kind of have to be ready to go all the time because you know, while one guy sleeping, the criminals in one country are sleeping, their wide awake and carrying out bad activities in another. That's true. What else can they do, josh? Oh? They serve that seven is also a place where you can access another country's databases. So there's those those nationally bound database has become international through this portal and interpal overseas

all of that, so they know what's going on. UM. They also, let's say there's an international disaster of some sort, like a terrorist attack, assassination, UM, they can send an incident response team UM generally coordinated through the U N. If there's some sort of actually a natural disaster like the tsunami efforts, they can send people down there to

help UM identify people and look for missing persons. UH, protect kids, because I can guarantee you there are a lot of pedophiles who traveled to Indonesia after that tsunami. That's right. That's crazy, man, that's just that's awful. Imagine like losing your parents, being seven, suddenly an orphan, and then now there's some guy who's like, hey, you're coming to Holland with me. You're like, no, I'm not. He's like, yeah, you really are. Well, you don't understand what he's saying.

He just offers you the lolly in a in a car ride. Yeah. Very sad. But thanks to interpoll things like that are being thwarted. Uh. And I saw there's two types of incident response teams UM. They have the criminal type and the disaster type UM and but they both serve in an advisory capacity and they show up with their database like I can get you into. They can act as a central command. Though if local authorities say, hey, we need your help to act as central command, help

us out with logistics. UM. I think the Grabster said in two thousand five they did that twelve times once a month. Not bad. Dust off the old work and shoes. Yeah, like get out the field. Yeah, time to get out of bed. How's it? Structure? Josh, Well, I'll tell you. Interpoll is made up of a General Assembly in which each of the member nations has one delegate and one

vote thanks a love sense. They meet once a year and they vote on all the big stuff, which kind of makes it a slow, lumbering bureaucracy unless they invest a lot of authority into the Executive Committee, which is the thirteen member committee that basically carries out all the administrative functions of Interpol. And they are elected, as is the Secretary General, although it saysn't here appointed. That's all elected. Oh yeah, yeah, now he's elected because um I saw

this guy, Ronald K. Noble. He got an overwhelming elegy of the vote for his second reelection. So he's in his third term, first time ever. Yeah, which is I think he's running from under this current term. And he is the first American secretary general if I'm not mistaken right, And he's the first three time secretary general too. Then a lot of frenchie's I think I saw one, uh Englishman. Yeah, and uh, there's definitely one German cause there was some

controversy with that. I believe the president is Korean, now, okay, not to be confused with the secretary general. The president is beneath him, right. The Secretary General is who actually runs the day to day show, right, and he's headquartered um in the General Secretariat, which is the main headquarters in Leon, France. That's right, um. And then there's other

there's regional offices. There's six of them, the sixth of which is in New York, and that's the special Liaison under the u N. Because Interpoll very wisely got in with the u N because like this body has some staying power. That's right. We're gonna become friendly with them. You can also find these place offices in Argentina, El Salvador, Thailand, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Cote Dvoir. Very nice, Thank you? Did you practice in No? Just it's lovely name that I've said

it many use myself. Yet it means the um coast devoir in French. Okay. You mentioned that we all all member countries chip in for the budget. UM. The budget is not a lot, though, compared to like any budget in the United States. I think in two thousand seven, um the grabster pointed it at roughly sixty one million dollars US or forty four a million euros, which I wonder what that's equal to now, two thousand seven dollars

to two thousand eleven. But it's a big change. I should have looked up the current budget actually failed to. It's okay, Chuck, let's talk about the notices. So this is their other big thing. Um. They don't just sit around and and wait to be asked for help. They also disseminate information, and they do it through color coded notices. They've got, Um, let's see what is the nine? Eight? Think seven? Okay, so they have eight now because they added another one after this after the Stephen. Yes, um,

and the different color codes mean different things. So you're going to get via teletype possibly facts or maybe even email. You'll get like some sort of maybe a PDF document of um, say Orange basically says like, hey, we've got we have pretty good idea that there's an imminent threat and it's this guy and he's wearing this coat and he's got a bomb. Yeah. So that if you get an orange one, your head better perk up and you need to look closely. That's right. Black is unidentified bodies.

That's the same one. That's the sattus of all notices UM yellow missing persons. It's probably second status, uh green general information and warnings about major criminals. So this one is kind of it. Um, that's pretty vague. High well,

it highlights another function that they have. UM that it wasn't explicitly stated in this article, but I gleaned using my powers of deduction, that they have analysts who crunch all this data, who poured through databasis, look at crime trends, look at criminal trends, and then um come up with basically just general notices. When they're sitting around with some time on their hands, they issue green notices that say like, hey, here's another angle to a case that you might not

have thought of. For interesting, have you met this guy. Here's all the bad stuff he's done. He may be in your neighborhood, right, that kind of thing, And the local authorities say, yeah, yeah, interval, we got we know you've got some time on your hand. Very nice, thank you. The blue notice Josh is um individuals of interest related to a crime, including the possible witnesses or suspects or

persons of interest. Is a good umbrella term for those kinds of people your crime that's already been comming, people who ran with the wrong crowd, where at the wrong place, in the wrong time, and didn't stick around. On an international level, that's right. Red. Recently, Mr Juliana Sans was issued at the red notice, which means you are wanted and it's sort of like a world wide a PB. You gotta keep that. You print it out and put it on your wall. What a red inner pole notice

on you? Oh yeah, got two find of his. I'll bet he kept his thin I'll bet he's one of the few who did. With photoshop though, I mean, you can never tell if it's real or not. You or I could make our own. I mean we should do that. Why not have a feeling one's coming your way. UH interpoll notice which is not a color. That was scary to me because it was the only one that's not a color unless the new one you talked about. It

is not a color. The Interpol notice means, um, it's a U n UH Security Council Special notice, meaning groups of individuals involved with al Qaeda or the Taliban or at work. Yeah, people who have UN sanctions on them. Um. Then there's now the Purple notice, which, um, basically it's

kind of like a green notice. It's like, hey, be aware of this kind of stuff that's going on, but it's about what people are doing, like international criminal trans Like do you remember I think they were like pen guns. There was like just a few years back, there was like a pen that could shoot and it was very low powered. But I think inter Poll sent out a notice on this, like, hey, you guys need to be aware that this thing's out there. Okay, well, inter Poll

probably inspired the writer. Interesting, it was a comedy too. I guarantee Interpoll inspired the writer. It was pretty funny. It was Fred red Ward, Fred Warder, Fred Willard fred Ward Okay, the time writer Remo Williams. Yeah, he had a he had a pen gun and shot at dude in the neck. It was kind of funny. What movie was it, Uh, thirty Minutes or Less with Danny McBride and uh, it was good. The guy who played Facebook he laid Facebook Mark, Yeah, the Jesse Eisenberg there, they

were both in that. It was sort of funny, but not highly recommended. But that scene was funny because Fred Willards like, you think it's a pen and all of sudden need to shoot the stude in the neck with it. That's funny. Um, that's high comedy. Yeah, it was very much. Um. I watched Inside Man again last night. That's such a good movie. Which one is that Spike Lee heist movie with Clive Owens that dude, really Yeah, you hadn't seen it either. I made it watch the last night. She's like,

this is a good movie. That's one of the few Spike Lee movies I have not seen. It's see that all right? Have you seen twenty Yeah that's a good one too. Yeah. I think Inside Man hasn't beaten all right. So yeah, Purple is just basically like information on new types of criminal activity that people need to be made aware of, like pen guns, gotcha and Fred Ward, But the pen gun was a real warning or a real purple warning. Notice, I don't know. I'm just assuming I'm

using example. So let's talk about the history of interpoll Chuck. It has a strange, tumultuous history that closely fall It was the tumult of the twentieth century if you ask me, Yeah, and Ed kind of breeze right over the whole Nazi part of it. There's been a lot of controversy over that. Actually, oh yeah, why are they accused of colluding? Well, let's back up. They were formed and being in Austria, uh,

during World War Two. Ed says they were interrupted when the Nazis took control, deposed the Secretary General moved to Berlin for a short time, but then after the war everything was rebuilt, they moved to Paris, and that's kind of all he said. I looked a little further into it, and it's pretty uh, pretty controversial those years, UM, when

it was under Nazi rule. Obviously, Uh, they shared headquarters with the Gestapo, officially operated UM as a division within the Nazi Security Police, and to Nazi war criminals were the agency's presidents during the wartime. Plus they overspent on

Christmas partes. Uh. And then this A read a Times article and some of the comments back to the editorial said, you guys even kind of whitewashed it because after the war they refused to take part in the sixties and seventies in any of the Nazi war crime hunting, war criminal hunts. Uh wow, I had no idea, Chuck, I'm really glad you did this. Yeah. And then uh in nineteen their president uh to seventy two was Paul Dickkop

and he was an s S officer. No, he was and remained president despite them finding out about this and knowing about this, and that was pretty controversial. Toe, I'll bet you don't usually want Nazis leading your organization former Nazis either, no, you know what I'm saying. Once the Nazi, always the Nazi in my opinion. Well, dip Cop was the he was that the president for whatever four years. Yeah. Wow.

And a lot of people, a lot of people say interpoll is like run without oversight and they have all this access, but no one has access to their real like how they do things the opposite of how grab Minowski tells them. Yeah, it's a little more controversial than I thought. Wants to start poking around. Well, I I guess it was probably the VHS tapes that started to bring them out of the dark and into uh, I guess a brighter role. Remember the Interpol warning on old

video cassettes? Now was that interval? Oh yeah, and now it's like an FBI warring. But before and every once in a while you'll still see it like Interpol warning it's again like copyright theft and piracy. Um. But yeah, apparently they now are they've shed themselves of Nazis and have a third term Secretary General who's busting pedophiles in Amsterdam. And did you pretty I think that's good? I'm saying, oh yeah, yeah, they've they've apparently tried to clean up

their image a lot since those days. It's crazy, man um. And you did you hear about the executive order Obama signed and oh nine, it was pretty controversial among conservatives because little background. The International Organization and Immunities Act in ninety five was signed into law, and basically that meant the president could say certain organizations international organizations that worked in the US are exempted from certain things like taxes,

search and sees or laws. And pretty much every president has said you can be a part of this, like the Red Cross Reagan UH in nineteen eighty three included interpoll Um as part of that group. Songs like four different sections dealing with property taxes, social security, federal taxes, customs, duties, and UH having property and assets searched and confiscated then and O nine, Obama said those four things now you're immune from as well, so you have full immunity Interpoll

does in the United States from these things. And conservatives got up in arms about, you know, the fact that Obama had signed this. They tend to get up in army anything he signed, like his his dinner check. Uh. But then people rallied back and said, well, you know, I thought you wanted someone tough on crime, and he's basically saying Interpoll has more rights to do their thing in the United States. So which way do you want it? Or do you just want to complain about everything that

he does? Uh? And the Obama administration said that, you know what, this really didn't give them any more free reign than Reagan had already given them an eighty three. It is sort of finished up what he started. So who knows, regardless regardless of which side you sit on on the political aisle, Obama is the new Reagan the end you got any more? Uh. Some successes. You talked about the tsunami in two thousand four, UM, and they your pedophile scenario. It's pretty big, not yours thirty countries,

that's pretty huge. UM. They helped identify and capture a Serbian war criminal, Milan Lukic Luci Luke. I bet it's lukach Uh in Argentina, coordinating between Argentina and Chile and uh Bosnia Herzegovina. Yeah. Um, and let's see. Uh. They they also had one, Um you remember the Madrid train bombings. Man, I had forgotten about those ninety people. Um, and they managed to catch at least one guy. They they found twenty one guilty, but the interpoll called at least one

guy through coordination between Belgrade, Baghdad and Madrid offices. And did you know the twenty one people who were found guilty of that got to combine forty thousand years in prison. Really, yeah, he'll probably never get out. No, no, I don't think they're gonna get out. And then grabs Her pointed this one out. A response team obtained and disseminated fingerprints and photographs of Abu Musab al al Zarkawi. Yeah, which sounds kind of whatever. But then you're like, oh, yeah, how

would you get that guys? I guess yeah, I thought the same thing, and then I thought twice. I was like, now, I guess that is a pretty big deal. It's worth mentiny. Yeah. Sure, I didn't find a lot of stuff though that searched for more. Yeah, same here. And I think they're sort of behind the scenes that they're like, we're not gonna have any big arrests because we don't do that. Um, but we're involved in a lot of those on the back end on their website, UM, which is a pretty cool,

user friendly website. Agreed. It's like, here's a lot of information that's very vague. Yeah, like we have two kinds of response teams, criminal and disaster, and that's all we're gonna say about that. That kind of thing. And you know, I'm interested to hear if anyone knows anymore about their controversies. I'm curious, does your dad work at Interpoll? We want

to know, Um, you got anything else? So if you want to learn more about inter Poll and and read a very glowing review of their life and work, very glossy, whitewashed review, UM, you can type in interpol I N T E R P O L. And did we say where they got the name? I don't think we did.

I don't think so. So with the advent of telegraph communications, they're like man we need to uh, we need to shorten this or else people aren't gonna waste the money with Western Union talking about us, so they shorten their name to Interpol. Instead of the longer I c OP. They should just call i CP. Yeah, I COP. Yeah yeah, Well, don't type I guess you could type I COP into the search probably some mac Apple app now that allows you to like make citizens arrest. Um, that's a good one. Thanks,

we should go make that. Um. Well, yeah, type I COP in the search bar. How stuff works dot com? And I said search bar, It just didn't you know it, which means it's time for listener now, Josh, I'm gonna call this uh uhm. A brewer for Anheuser Busch. Wow, it's a big, big time one of the big daddies. Hey, guys, just finished listening to the Beer podcast and felt compelled to write. I used to live in Atlanta and missed the Beer Senior, a dream of the brick store pub

every third night. I'm a beer geek homebrewer, and also happened to now brew beer for Annheuser Busch UM also now known as a b in Bev. As was mentioned in the podcast, it's a pretty sweet gig that all started for me by homebrewing in my Atlanta apartment closet. Crazy. UM. I enjoyed the podcast a lot, and you were pretty spot on with the info and brewing one on one, except for the mention of forced carbonation. UM, I have worked because I think we said that that the big

breweries like forced carbonate everything not so UM. I've worked a couple of crap berries aside from my current job at Anheuser Busch, and I had never seen this before. I can't speak for the other big guys, but our beer at ANH Anheuser Busch is made pretty much the same way as other small craft beers. We just have much larger equipment and more automation at Anheuser Busch. After primary fermentation, our beers are loggered in a tank for as long as twenty one days in the case of

the famous Budweiser. I've heard of that twenty one days. Um. During the aging process, the beer is still fermating slightly and builds up c O two in the tank. This is how our beer is carbonated, all natural, so similar to the priming homebrew and bottles and uh that's it, he says, have a four twenty on me and I'll pick up the tab next time in Atlanta. No, you send us the money first, and then we'll go have a four twenty and you That's what I say, David.

Thanks David. We appreciate in advance the money you'll send us for our four twenties. Yes, and also I wanted to point out when we were talking about our favorite beers, I was sort of snobby with all my I p a s and all that stuff. I do love all that, but the triumvirate for me has been my staple since college, which is Budweiser, Miller Highlight, and the Pats. I like, yeah,

I like all those. I'm fun with those, and I don't drink those as much anymore because I love the taste of like a delicious I p A. But I certainly don't turn my nose up at a Budweiser. Okay, well, then you're definitely not a beer snobble, No, not, you like the drinking poop? Remember those kids in college? Did you know anybody in college you could like recite what it said on the neck label of the Budweiser bottle, like what it says the writing. I didn't know anyone.

It's like, this is Budweiser, the finest beer ever produced to Bud. I used to go to school with kids who could recite that like by heart, and I always thought it was kind of sad. Yeah, I didn't even know. I've never even read the bottle. It's easier if you have like a beach towel because the lettering is way

bigger and see. Oh and I also got called out by a fans for being a hipster for drinking HAPs and I was like, dude, I've been drinking PBR since like and it amused me when it became a hipster beer. I was like, really, it blows my mind how much we share ourselves and how much we have been the four plus episodes, and there's so many people out there who do not know us at all. So um, I guess if you want to offer us money for beer, that's cool, or you can just send us beer. We're

not done with that call out yet. I'm not a shame over money. Sure, you can tweet to us to get in touch with us at s Y s K podcast, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know, or an email address is as follows Colon stuff podcast at Discovery dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot Com? Yeah, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you