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A three-week transnational border security operation coordinated by INTERPOL across five countries in the Middle East and North Africa has led to 48 arrests, including nine individuals wanted internationally.
INTERPOL disclosed this in a statement issued on Wednesday, noting that eight of the nine fugitives were subject to INTERPOL Red Notices and one was under an INTERPOL Wanted Persons Diffusion.
It said the operation, codenamed Phoenix, was an integral part of Project Momentum-MENA, a three-year INTERPOL initiative to boost national and regional law enforcement capacities in the Middle East and North Africa, with a specific focus on the operational training and deployment of women police officers. The project is financially backed by the European Union.
This was the first cross-MENA operation where female police officers had full operational responsibility, the statement said.
Among the significant Red Notice successes, INTERPOL disclosed, was the arrest at Houari Bou Madian International Airport in Algiers, Algeria of the suspected mastermind behind a 2022 shooting in Toulouse, France.
The suspect had previously escaped from prison after being sentenced to eight years for drug trafficking, participation in a criminal conspiracy, and possession of weapons.
Another high-profile case involved the arrest at a land crossing on the Algeria-Tunisia border of a second prison escapee wanted by French authorities, who had been convicted and sentenced to a 15-year jail term for murder.
The statement revealed that during the three-week Operation Phoenix timeline, more than 700,000 cross-checks were made against INTERPOL databases, generating 246 hits on individuals and travel documents.
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Seizures included five travel documents reported in the Organization’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database.
Other items recovered included 11 luxury vehicles, USD 16,300 in cash, EUR 9,900 in cash, 1.8 kilograms of gold, 13,000 Captagon pills, 123 crystal meth capsules, 530 mobile phones and 1,525 cartons of smuggled cigarettes.
The statement further said the operation channeled the project’s training efforts into a border operation, leveraging INTERPOL tools and services to target wanted persons linked to terrorism and criminal networks.
INTERPOL reiterated that Operation Phoenix was led entirely by women police officers, from first-line document checks and second-line interviews at border points through to border leadership.
Women officers also managed international cooperation at INTERPOL’s offices in the five participating countries and coordinated activities at the two Operational Coordination Units in Algeria and Jordan.
INTERPOL’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, María Carmen Muñoz González, said that with nine internationally wanted individuals arrested, including previously convicted criminals, the operation shows the effectiveness of international police cooperation at potentially sensitive border crossings.
She added that the overall results are a credit to the female police officers who had full operational responsibility for the operation.
The participating countries were Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.
